


Dreams of a Faraway Dawn

by eliddell



Category: Chrono Cross, Chrono Trigger
Genre: Action, Adventure, Canon Compliant, Drama, Other, Sibling Incest (sort of)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-24
Updated: 2013-02-02
Packaged: 2017-11-26 19:00:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 9
Words: 243,741
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/653421
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eliddell/pseuds/eliddell
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The (extremely long) tale of Magus, beginning with his arrival in the Middle Ages after the destruction of Zeal in the original timeline, and following him on past the end of Chrono Cross.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. I. The Darkness Before

**Author's Note:**

> Additional warnings for Part I only: cannibalism, assassination, species discrimination, brief mentions of homosexuality. 
> 
> ### Disclaimer:
> 
> Most characters, some setting details, and a few bits of quoted dialogue belong to Squaresoft-that-was, not to me. 
> 
> ### On Canon:
> 
> This follows the PSX versions of both Chrono Trigger and Chrono Cross, and _mostly_ ignoring the new material in the DualScreen version of Trigger—I can accept Dalton intervening in Porre (and in fact had a bit of fun with it), but the new ending is . . . um. Not _problematic_ , exactly, since I managed to come up with a workable way to include it, but it would have meant adding 40+ pages to this thing for what would amount to a rather silly and pointless flash in the pan. And furthermore, I think it's out of character for Magus to accept anyone's word, _even Schala's own_ , for the fact that his sister is unsaveable. He's too damned stubborn for that—he'd keep trying to find a way. (Not to mention that I've yet to hear whether the ending still exists if you kill him at the North Cape.) So, for purposes of this 'fic, I'm consigning the Dream Devourer to the same bin as the everybody-turns-into-Reptites and other non-canon endings. 
> 
> I'm also assuming that most of the locations shown in Chrono Trigger are larger than they appear in the game (they pretty much _have_ to be, unless most of the population of Kajar sleeps on the floor!), so I've added rooms wherever they were useful, ideally in positions where the doors would have been hidden during the game.  <Shrug>
> 
> Apparent discrepancies involving things like amulets, Dreamstone and Nu are eventually explained in the text. 
> 
> ### On Dialog:
> 
> Where I've quoted the games, I've mostly stuck with the old official translation (Woolsey's), other than cleaning up inconsistencies, out-of-character wordings, and grammatical errors, and removing a few sound effects representing inarticulate noises. I've even included most of the overload of punctuation present in the original. ;P 
> 
> ### On Language:
> 
> The fact that, in the games, there seems to be a single worldwide language which remains largely unchanged over a period of more than 14000 years (and is still comprehensible, if simplified, in 65000000BC!) just plain bothers me. Yes, I know that there's no good in-game way to model a more plausible level of linguistic variation . . . but I'm not writing a game here. Having the portals give travellers some understanding of the language of the era they were entering was the best compromise I could come up with. Perhaps the Entity had a hand in it . . . ? 
> 
> In any case, I've assumed that Zeal had its own language, probably with an extensive set of terms for magical concepts and entities that wouldn't have arisen in any language since, and that it would have been in everyday use on the floating islands. "High Zeala" seemed as reasonable a name for it as any, and implies the existence of a second dialect, "Low Zeala", for the Earthbound, who wouldn't have had any use for the magic- related vocabulary. 
> 
> Logically, the language of 600AD would then be a distant descendant of Low Zeala, although it probably wouldn't bear any more real resemblance to it than English does to reconstructions of Proto-Indo-European. However, it makes sense (I hope) that the Mystics, by then the world's only magic users, would have retained High Zeala as the language of magic and spellcasting, although most of them probably only memorized fragments of it by rote rather than trying for any real understanding. 
> 
> Magus, naturally, would speak all three languages. 
> 
> ### On tonic as a topical medication:
> 
> There's no reason I can think of that abstracted RPG meds wouldn't be as effective rubbed into the skin as any other way—and let's face it: would _you_ want to drink something you just bought from a random Nu?

I remember quite clearly that the first thing I thought upon falling into the year 582AD was, _What a dump! This place is worse than the Earthbound hovels. And what does that green thing think it is, and why is it waving its hands that way? And why is it so quiet?_

I didn't really understand I was in danger even when the three imps came rustling out of the undergrowth to surround me. How could I? I was a pampered little Zealish prince—no one had ever dared raise his hand against me. It was only when one of the imps kicked me in the ankle that I managed to grasp that they meant to hurt me, and even then I wasn't afraid, just angry. 

"My mother is going to have you chopped up and fed to the palace cats." I think that's what I said. If not, it was some similar inane threat. I didn't understand yet that I no longer had the resources of Zeal to protect me. 

The big green creature laughed. "No, little human, we're going to roast you on a spit. You should be plenty tender, too. We don't manage to catch human children very often—most of the parents around here are a lot more careful of their precious little ones than yours seem to have been." 

Then all three of the imps jumped me at once, and, well, I was seven, small for my age, and sickly. I did what I could, scratching and biting and kicking, but I still inevitably ended up on the bottom of the heap. And then the Black Wind whispered in my ears, and I realized that it was its near absence that had made me think it was so quiet, earlier. 

That was when I started to be genuinely afraid. Tears leaked from my eyes, and I curled myself around a hollow, cold place that seemed to be growing in my stomach. The amulet my sister had given me, with its inset Dreamstone fragment, burned against my chest, and I felt something, a pressure inside my head that built and built and then burst— 

The imps yelped as they were flung in three different directions. They bounced to their feet again fairly quickly, and began circling me cautiously, but the green creature waved them back. I sat up slowly, holding my pounding head. Then the green thing grabbed me by my collar, lifted me up, and shook me. Fortunately, my clothes were loose enough that he didn't choke me, but it wasn't very comfortable. 

"Why didn't you say something, you stupid cub? You're old enough to know you look human enough to be mistaken for one if you don't use your magic! What in hell have your parents been teaching you?!" 

I gave him the sullen glare I'd perfected for use on Dalton. "My parents are dead." Or at least, my mother might as well have been, when I'd been flung into darkness by Lavos. 

"Hmph." The green creature set me on my feet, but kept hold of my collar. "Humans _did_ mistake you for one of them and took you in, did they? Then threw you out when they found out you were really a Mystic, I suppose. Well, if you stay this human-looking through your Metamorphosis, you'll make a useful spy, although I can see that keeping you alive until then is probably going to be a pain." 

_A . . . Mystic?_ And then, something else in the jumble of the green creature's words suddenly struck home. _Magic? Me?_ Was that what that horrible pain in my head had been? I hadn't thought it was supposed to hurt that way. Schala had said it didn't—that using magic felt _good_. 

Schala . . . 

I started to sniffle, then to cry for real. I'd never see my sister again. I'd been separated from everything I knew, even my cat. Even at that age, I found such open displays of emotion embarrassing, but I was worn down by strangeness and my head still hurt and I couldn't help myself. 

The green creature patted my head awkwardly—almost frantically, I can see now. "There, there, cub, we're not going to abandon you. Caeron! Damnit, _Caeron!_ " 

"I'm here, Lord Ozzie—you don't need to shout. Well, hello there, cub." 

I only saw the person who crouched down in front of me as a blurry blob, but I could tell that he at least wasn't green. 

"What do you think?" Ozzie asked gruffly. 

"I've never seen anything quite like this before—it's quite fascinating! Most untrained shadow-elements have greyish auras, but this cub's all white and black spikes. With training, I think he'll turn out to be extraordinarily strong—won't you, my little magus?" 

I sniffled and shrugged. "How—" I wiped my eyes, and finally brought Caeron's face into focus. _He_ looked human, maybe even handsome, with short, silvery-coloured hair, and he was wearing a long grey robe and gloves. 

"What is it, cub?" Caeron smiled. He had a nice smile—warm. 

"How can I be a shadow-user? My parents were both lightning-elements." I'd thought I understood how heredity and magic worked—it had certainly been explained to me often enough that if two people of the same element had a child, that child would also be of that element, or of the associated element if it was one of the split ones. So the son of two lightning-users— me—had to be either a lightning- or wind-element. 

Was that why I'd never seemed to be able to learn any magic no matter how hard I tried? Because they'd been trying to teach me through the wrong element? I'd never dared open myself to the non-elemental power transmitted by the Mammon Machine—the one time I'd genuinely tried, it had felt like it was going to swallow me up—and anyway, you were supposed to learn your own element first before trying to channel. 

Caeron blinked. "You're an Invert?" 

"He's a _what_?" Ozzie put in. 

"An Invert. Opposite element from his parents, and extremely powerful. Except that I've never heard of a Lightning- Shadow one before. Even Ice-Fire Inverts like Lord Serian are rare—" 

"Wait. Are you saying this brat could be another Serian?" 

"Stronger, maybe. Lightning-Shadow is the more powerful axis, after all." 

The green creature gave me a thoughtful look. "Stronger than the most powerful mage in our history . . ." 

"Not if you choke me before I have a chance to grow up," I interrupted sullenly, tugging on my collar. 

The green creature let me go. "Sorry, cub. Caeron, can you . . . ?" 

"Yes, of course." Caeron held out his arms. "Come here, little magus. Let's get you to your new home." 

I thought about it—long enough and hard enough for Caeron to start looking miffed—before I stepped forward and let him pick me up. I'd decided that I didn't really have a choice but to go with these strange . . . people. I didn't know where or even _when_ I was, and I needed food and shelter. Caeron seemed to be very interested in training me to be a mage, so he would probably look after me, at least until he found out I wasn't really a Mystic. Whatever a Mystic was. 

I was pretty cynical already, despite my youth. Palace intrigue doesn't leave even seven-year-olds completely untouched. 

I winced as Caeron lifted me. 

"Headache, cub? Here, drink this." He somehow managed to support me with one arm while he fished a vial out of a hidden pocket. 

I looked at it suspiciously and touched my tongue to the liquid inside. I immediately spat, but the bitter, oily taste stuck with me, coating my tongue. 

"I know what it tastes like, little magus—it's difficult to refine good ether with the equipment I have, so this is weak, and there's a lot of tree resin in it. But it'll make your headache go away . . . and anyway, a full-strength ether would be wasted on you right now. You don't have the capacity yet. Now, hold your nose and drink up." 

Holding my nose, I discovered, helped with the taste while I was actually drinking, but not with the awful aftertaste. But Caeron was right about it making my headache go away. 

"Are you going to carry me all the way to wherever we're going?" I asked suspiciously. 

Caeron chuckled. "If I didn't already know you'd been raised apart from other Mystics, that would prove it. I'm stronger that I look, cub, and besides, we're not going to _walk_ the whole way—but taking someone with a magic- drain headache through a teleport isn't really a good idea." 

That just made me frown more. "Teleport? You mean, like the skyways? But you don't have a magic circle—" I knew that not all teleportation spells needed them, but those that didn't could only carry their caster a few hundred feet—or at least that was what I had always been taught. 

"I have no idea what you're talking about, but this is a teleport. _Power of light, carry us forward to the place I have envisioned—_ " 

I blinked. Until Caeron had begun incanting his spell, I hadn't realized it, but the language he and Ozzie had been speaking, and presumably the one I had spoken back to them, wasn't anything I'd ever heard before. The spell, however, was in High Zeala, although Caeron's accent would never have passed at my mother's court. How had I gotten an entire other language dumped into my head without realizing it? Was it something about how the hole Lavos had thrown me through worked? 

I was so busy thinking about that that I was startled when our surroundings went dark, then . . . well, not exactly light again. We were inside some kind of poorly lit tunnel. 

"And that's about ten miles of walking that we _don't_ have to do," Caeron said, with a wink. "One more, and we'll be at Lord Ozzie's castle—" 

"Could I learn to do that?" I interrupted. "I mean, is it a shadow-spell, or—" 

"You're certainly a much more eager student than my son is," Caeron said. "That version isn't a shadow-spell, but a powerful enough shadow-mage—like you're going to be—can do something that's called 'elemental cloaking', which lets him cast spells of the other elements. All right, here we go again." 

This time, it was no darker where we landed . . . but no brighter, either. The room was stone-walled, and felt smaller than I thought it really was because of the looming stacks of clutter. Books, a lot of it, but there were some shadowy shapes I couldn't make out, too. 

Then the door opened, and it got a lot brighter. "Dad, you're back!" Then the boy standing silhouetted in the doorway tilted his head in a way I didn't think I liked. "Who's that? He smells bad!" 

Caeron put me down. "Manners, Flea. Lord Ozzie found this cub stranded in the middle of nowhere." 

"Cub? That's a human!" Flea sneered. 

"Anyone looking at you or I would think the same thing, if we were dressed that way," Caeron said sternly. "Even you should be able to sense his aura. He's a mage of considerable potential, and I intend to train him." 

Flea snorted eloquently. "If that means you're going to get off my case and onto his, that's fine by me. Does he have a name, or are we just supposed to call him 'cub'?" 

"Call me 'Magus'," I said firmly. "After all, that's what I'm going to be." It hadn't taken me even a second to decide that I didn't want Flea calling me by my real name. I didn't want the way I knew _he'd_ say it overlaying my memories of my sister's voice. I was going to remember everything about Schala that I possibly could, I promised myself. Everything. Forever. 

"Well, 'Magus'—" Flea drawled my new name exactly the way I'd suspected he would. "—I hope you don't expect me to treat you like a baby brother, or anything." 

"Flea! That's enough! Go to your room!" 

"To my—I'm a little old for that, you know!" 

"And as soon as you have your Metamorphosis, you can move out of here and into the barracks, if you decide that's what you want," his father snapped, "but while you're under my roof, you're going to obey my rules, and that means you're going to be polite, do you understand me?" 

Flea sniffed and turned away from the door without saying another word. Caeron sighed and shook his head. 

"Sorry about that, cub. Flea's Metamorphosis should have begun months ago, and he's being . . . difficult. Let's see if one of the guest rooms suits you." 

* * *

"Do you know what this is, cub?" 

"It's the mage-cross," I said impatiently. It was the next morning, and Caeron had decided to begin my lessons promptly. Unfortunately, it looked like he was convinced that I didn't know anything. 

"Which is?" 

"It shows how the elements relate." I decided to forestall any more questions, and reached out to trace the lines on the primitive diagram with my finger. "The major axis," I said, tracing the thicker vertical line. "The split point at the top represents lightning and wind, the solid one at the bottom is shadow. And this is the minor axis." That was the thinner horizontal line. "The split point on the left is water and ice, the solid one on the right is fire. The two little curved braces that connect the minor axis to the shadow-point indicate that it's possible to create a kind of imitation shadow spell by combining fire with water or ice, with or without the addition of lightning. Properly, the whole thing should be drawn in the colours appropriate to each element, but it's probably too difficult to get right with primitive inks." 

"And the difference between the split points and the solid ones?" Caeron prompted. 

I hesitated, dredged through my memory. "The solid points are supposed to be stronger. Theoretically, anyway. The secondary elements—" I traced the little curved tine of wind, where it split off the major axis. "—supposedly bleed off some power from their primaries, although the difference isn't noticeable except at the highest levels. So fire is a little bit stronger than water." 

"Which means what for shadow and lightning?" 

"Shadow should be stronger, but . . ." 

"But?" 

"I was taught that shadow-users are rare, and usually very weak." I was still trying to get my mind around the concept that _I_ was a very strong shadow-user. 

"Do you know why?" 

I shook my head. "Everyone thought I had to be a lightning-element, so I was never taught more than the basics of the others." 

Caeron smiled. "So there are some limits to your knowledge. When you started lecturing that way, I was afraid that I didn't really have anything to teach you." Then he sobered. "Shadow is different from the other elements in some very important ways." 

"Like that elemental cloaking thing you mentioned," I said. 

"That's one of them, although in this case I'm talking about something more fundamental—how the elements relate to life." 

"To _life_?" I blinked. 

"Think about it. Water is required by all living things. So is air—wind. And a certain level of warmth . . . but not too much." His hand brushed the diagram, indicating the fire and ice points. "Lastly, lightning is the fire of the mind—it's tiny lightnings that spark our thoughts and allow us to command our bodies. But shadow . . ." His hand flattened itself, covering the bottom point. "Shadow doesn't relate to life at all—in fact, it's inimical to it. Many potential shadow-users die before they're even born, or shortly after. The few who survive . . . well, their bodies accommodate themselves somehow, as yours clearly has." 

That . . . made sense, if I thought about it. I'd heard the whispers, of course, that my mother had nearly miscarried of me twice, and I remembered the way illnesses that gave other people a cough and a runny nose had often threatened my life when I was smaller . . . Schala had sat beside my bed for hours at a time, feeding me sips of elixir and rubbing my chest, holding me when I was delirious or when the powerful water-elements who served as palace doctors came to look at me. 

I'd had the best care that the Magical Kingdom of Zeal could provide, so I'd lived, but someone else might not have. 

"You're not a shadow-user, are you?" I asked Caeron, who shook his head. 

"Quite correct. I am a wind-element. Unfortunately, I doubt there is a shadow-user currently alive who is strong enough to train you effectively, so we'll just have to do our best, won't we? Now, someone's obviously taught you a lot of theory, but if you've been taught from the wrong element, I'd bet your actual spellcasting isn't very good, is it?" 

I gave him a sullen, embarrassed look. "No. I've never gotten even a baby spell to work the way it's supposed to, although sometimes when I try to cast them, I do get magical effects—just the wrong ones. Like things moving around when I try to do a coldlight spell." 

I didn't try to explain to him about the Black Wind, partly because, at the time, I didn't understand that perceiving it was a magical ability. It was just something that people _did_ —or didn't do, most of them, but . . . In any case, I didn't mention it, although as matters played out later, it might have been better if I had. 

Caeron gave me a judicious nod. "That's because your element is so strong in you: it's trying to twist what you cast around to suit itself, and will keep doing so until you learn better control. I think you'll find the basic shadow spells quite easy." He was rolling up the mage-cross chart as he spoke. Putting it away on a high shelf, he brought down a slender volume bound in black leather to replace it. "This is the most basic shadow-use text I have. I assume you can read. Good. Start here, then. I'll do my best to answer any questions." 

* * *

After spending so much of my life with no power to speak of, I found my new magical abilities . . . delightful. For the next week, I practiced simple concealment and telekinetic spells late into the night, and even learned not to grimace at the taste of Caeron's horrible homemade, resinous weak ether, because I was drinking a lot of it, even though I never exhausted myself to the point that I had with the imps. In fact, practice was making my magical capacity grow by leaps and bounds. 

I barely left Caeron's workroom during that period. The Mystic mage seemed to share some of my delight in my newfound powers, because he went so far as to bring me my meals there. 

I think it was on the tenth day that Flea found me, although I admit that I'd lost some of my sense of time, living in a room lit only by etheric lamps. 

"So this is where you've been hiding, _Magus_ ," the older boy sneered at me as he lounged in the doorway, wearing some sort of odd, heavily padded garments. "You know, you're not exempt from arms practice just because you're Dad's new pet—hasn't he told you that yet? Lord Ozzie wasn't pleased when he heard you weren't showing up." 

I frowned. "Arms . . . practice? That's for menials!" Physical fighting in Zeal was mostly done by constructs—made creatures like the Lashers. Well, okay, there _was_ a small human officer corps that kept an eye on them, but the people who joined it were those who didn't have strong enough magic to hold a more useful job. Like Dalton. 

Flea snorted. "I don't know _or_ care what things were like where you came from. Here, _everyone's_ trained to fight—even stinking little human boys." 

My first impulse was to insult him right back . . . but that would have been descending to the level of an Earthbound, so instead I froze, quivering. 

_What am I doing here?_ I asked myself. _Don't I have any higher purpose than to fight with this idiot? I want . . . I need . . ._ My hands tightened slowly into fists. _It's Lavos. That_ thing _stole everything from me: Schala, mother, Alfador . . . my entire world. I won't let everything end that way, I won't! Someday, when I'm stronger, I'm going to kill it._

In hindsight, I must admit that I am a little surprised that it took so long for that resolution to be born in me. In my defense, I was young, and still very confused by events that had happened too rapidly for me to sort out. I hadn't even yet figured out that I'd been flung into the future—that would have to wait until several weeks later, when I discovered a book on the history of magic in Caeron's hoard. 

I took a moment to turn over in my mind what being _stronger_ really meant, ignoring the odd way Flea was looking at me. Practicing my magic, yes, but _just_ that? There were a lot of different kinds of strength. Fighting Lavos was going to be difficult. I might need more than just spells. And that meant . . . 

"Where do I have to be, and when?" I asked Flea. 

Caeron's son smirked. "The second hour after noon, tomorrow. I'll take you there." 

I nodded firmly. "You'll find me here, then." 

I spent a while longer staring unseeing at the wall and thinking about different kinds of strength and power—magical, physical. Political . . . that one really set the wheels in my head turning, although I knew it would be a long time before I could do much with it. 

I knew a little about making oneself a reputation—you couldn't live at the royal court of Zeal and remain in complete ignorance of that—so I was aware that there were at least three different ways to go about it. One was to ingratiate yourself with someone who already had a reputation of his or her own. That was the easiest way, but it was also the most fragile—your patron could fall out of favour at any time, and there might be nothing that you could do about it. 

The next easiest way was to be charming. I knew I'd never be able to pull that off. 

The hardest way . . . was to be truly outstanding at something. Or, ideally, at everything you turned your hand to. I sighed, because I knew that was going to be a lot of work, and probably painful . . . but I would do it. I would build myself into the most powerful, most dangerous mage-warrior the world ever had or ever _would_ see, gather followers, and confront Lavos. 

So I was grimly determined when Flea came for me the next day. I'd dressed myself in the most appropriate clothing I could find—a plain grey sleeveless tunic and trousers that Caeron had given me to replace my Zealish prince's robes—and was studying diligently to cover my apprehension. Shadow magic was still a pleasure and a delight, but I knew that I was going to need to know more than tricks, so the book I had open in front of me was a volume on magical theory that was really just a hair too hard for someone studying at my level. I was having to read everything three or four times to make sense of it, so I wasn't too unhappy to put the thing aside. 

I slid down off my chair and walked over to where Flea was standing in the doorway. He looked me up and down, and sniffed, but didn't say anything. Then he turned around and walked away, and since he was easily twice my age and height, I had to trot after him to catch up—humiliating, but necessary. 

I'd already figured out that Flea wasn't going to be nice to me, and I'd resolved to take everything he could throw at me . . . within reason, of course. Crippling myself by letting him involve me in some kind of fool's game wouldn't bring me any closer to my goals. 

I might have done some things differently if I'd known how the elementary fighting classes for cubs at Ozzie's keep were structured, though. Or maybe not—I'd already figured out that wimping out wasn't going to get me anywhere. 

Caeron, as Ozzie's Head Mage, had the west tower of the castle to himself, and this was the first time I'd left it, but Flea gave me no time to look around. I made a mental note to explore a bit on my own, because I had a feeling that Flea wouldn't be too happy acting as native guide all the time, and getting lost too often would make me look silly. 

Flea opened a door leading outside. It was the first time I'd seen the sun in days, and it made my eyes burn and tear. I had to rub at them before I could see properly. 

The first thing I noticed was that everyone was staring at me. Dozens of creatures—no, _people_ , I corrected myself. I was going to have to be careful to think of all the Mystics as people, even if many of them appeared to be descended from constructs or the like. Anyway, the people in the dirt-floored courtyard seemed to be divided into three groups, roughly according to size, with the smallest on my left— beginner's, intermediate, and advanced classes, maybe? Well, there was no question of where my level of skill would place me. I moved tentatively leftward. Flea walked over to join the center group, although he was by far the tallest there, and the person he fell into conversation with was a blue-skinned being from the group on the right. 

The Mystic cubs in the beginner's group were mostly around my size, and many of them looked at me curiously, but no one bothered talking to me. _About_ me, yes, I could tell that several of them were doing that. 

It never even occurred to me to make overtures to them. I'd always been discouraged from making friends with other children. It had been considered unbecoming to my rank. 

A door creaked, and the courtyard was instantly silent, except for the sound of the wind. A big green Mystic of the same species as Ozzie had entered from the far end, and was ambling toward us—toward _me_ , I realized. And, indeed, the creature stopped right in front of me. 

"So you're Magus." 

I nodded silently. 

"And what do you know about fighting?" 

"Nothing," I said evenly. 

"'Nothing,'" the green creature repeated, and chuckled. "Well, at least that means you won't have any _bad_ habits. _Slash!_ Get over here!" 

Slash, it appeared, was Flea's blue friend. He looked a bit like an imp, but much taller and with more human proportions. 

"I'm to take the beginner class again today, sir?" he asked as he arrived at the green creature's side. 

"That's right." A smirk. "Magus here doesn't know anything about fighting, so make sure you give him your _special_ attention." 

"Yes, sir." 

Slash waited until the green creature had moved on toward the older classes before he turned to us. "You—Magus— over here. The rest of you pair off and start warming up." 

I walked over to stand in front of Slash, who looked me up and down, and snorted. "Why didn't you borrow some of Flea's old gear, idiot? That soft pink skin of yours is going to get all scratched up." 

I shrugged. "I'm not afraid of a few scratches, but I'll ask Master Caeron about it tonight." 

"Huh. Not much fazes you, does it? All right, Magus: the first thing you have to do is learn how to fall. Until you learn that, no one—not me, and not _Master_ Tezza— is going to teach you anything else. Oh, and there's a rule in this courtyard." 

I waited. 

Slash grinned. "You're not allowed to use any magic. Absolutely none, got it? Not even protective or healing spells. If you do, Master Tezza'll have you whipped. You'll be taught to coordinate magic with physical attacks after your Metamorphosis. Here, we teach the basics." 

"I understand." I hadn't had control of my magic for nearly long enough for it to be second nature to me yet, so abstaining shouldn't be that difficult . . . I hoped. "Can we start now?" 

I came away from that first day in the courtyard bruised and battered and with an understanding that packed dirt was hard and that keeping your body relaxed and supple when someone like Slash was throwing you onto it was even harder. 

When I showed up again the next day, wearing a set of Flea's old padded practice clothes that I'd begged from Caeron, Slash seemed a bit surprised to see me, but was also quite happy to help me to add a whole fresh set of bruises to the ones the tonic I'd guzzled along with my ether the previous evening had half-healed. 

After a week or so, I'd learned how to fall, and was beginning to understand the miniature society of the cubs' fighting classes. For one thing, I'd figured out that Flea and Slash were very good friends, although Slash was a couple of years younger than Caeron's son . . . and far ahead of him in the fighting arts. Actually, Slash was ahead of _all_ the other cubs in the fighting arts—that was why they had him teaching the beginner's class. Once he went through his Metamorphosis and became an acknowledged adult, which was expected to happen soon, he was going to be an officer in Ozzie's army. 

Flea, on the other hand, was considered a hopeless case—both when it came to physical fighting, and in general. He was, as Caeron had told me when I'd first arrived, late in entering the mysterious state of Metamorphosis, and until he did, he would be considered a cub—a child. 

That was useful to me, though, because it let me predict how long it would be safe for me to stay at Ozzie's castle. Twelve or thirteen seemed to be the usual age of Metamorphosis. If a Mystic hit fourteen and it still hadn't happened to him, the others started to give him strange looks. That would be when I'd have to leave. If I was still here, unMetamorphosed, at fifteen, even someone of Ozzie's questionable intelligence would probably be able to figure out that I wasn't really a Mystic after all. And that would probably get me killed. 

"Take that back!" Flea's shout drew me out of my own thoughts. I blinked and glanced over to where he stood, surrounded by the other members of the intermediate group. 

"Like hell we will," a green imp taunted. 

"You know it's true," a naga-ette added. "If you weren't a stinking human, you'd be an adult already, not stuck here with us!" 

"Hu- _man_! Hu- _man_!" 

I looked around for Master Tezza, but the big green creature was nowhere to be seen. Slash seemed to reach the same conclusion, because he swore and left the youngest cubs to their own devices so that he could approach the intermediates. He didn't quite get there before Flea and several others went down in a pile of flailing limbs, though. 

I watched with a kind of detached fascination as Slash began pulling cubs off the kicking, spitting pile. They all seemed to have forgotten everything they knew about fighting when they'd tackled Flea—even I could see that. Clawing at each other, rolling around on the ground . . . it wasn't very efficient, and I promised myself that _I_ would never act that way. 

It took Slash a while to dig his way down to Flea, who was curled into a little knot on the ground, protecting his stomach. 

"Flea? Hey, Flea? You okay?" 

"Urgh." Flea's eyes flickered open, but he had the oddest expression on his face. "Slash? Why is it so hot? It's hard to breathe." Had he lost his mind? To me, the courtyard felt pretty damned chilly. 

The blue cub crouched down and felt his friend's forehead. "Flea, you idiot, why couldn't you wait until you were at home tonight?" But Slash was . . . almost laughing? 

"What're you talking about?" 

"It's your Metamorphosis, idiot—it's finally started. Here, come on, work with me a bit—we need to get you home to bed." 

"Trauma-triggered . . . should have known," Flea mumbled blurrily as Slash slung his arm across his shoulders and half-lifted him to his feet. 

"Master Caeron did say it ran in his family. Concentrate on walking. The rest of you—simple patterns. I'll be back soon." 

Of course, that was the cue for everyone to gather into little groups and start gossiping as soon as he was out of sight. I was the only one in the courtyard who stood alone and surrounded by silence: none of the other cubs had shown any interest in befriending me even yet, and I'd assessed the situation and decided I didn't want to waste my time on people who would be long gone from my life by the time I was ready to challenge Lavos. So instead of talking, I stretched slowly, testing my muscles—and my bruises—and then went back to practicing the very elementary kick-block-punch series that Slash had just shown me. I was determined to start on my real training, with weapons, by the end of summer, and it was already late spring. 

Slash did come back soon, and things went back to normal for the next hour or two, with me getting even more bruises and then going home to Caeron's tower to wash, change clothes, and curl up in the workroom with a book. 

It was when my stomach growled that I finally realized that something was . . . well, _wrong_ was too strong a word, really. I couldn't _expect_ Caeron to wait on me— even a pampered Zealish prince could figure that much out. So it shouldn't have been so much of a surprise when he didn't show up with my supper. 

I put my book aside and considered where I might find food. I didn't know whether what I'd been eating had been cooked here in the tower or brought up from a central kitchen. I decided I'd explore the tower first, though—less chance of getting lost that way. 

It was the first time I'd been above the second floor. The dining room and Caeron's workroom were at ground level, and I'd claimed the largest of the three bedrooms on the next floor up as my due. Caeron's and Flea's rooms were above that, I knew, but the tower had at least five stories . . . 

There was light coming from inside one of the third- floor rooms. Light . . . and food smells. Peeking inside, I saw Caeron sitting in a chair beside a bed, a tray of food resting on a low table by his elbow. I turned away, telling myself firmly that stealing my teacher's supper was beneath the dignity of a Prince of Zeal, but Caeron had already noticed me. 

"Magus? Come here." 

I stepped cautiously through the half-open door and into the room. 

It was about the same size as the one I'd claimed on the level below, but more sparsely furnished. A bookshelf along one wall held a dozen or so well-thumbed volumes that looked to me like a mixture of histories and elementary fire magic texts. A wardrobe shoved into a corner was on the verge of bursting at the seams, and the table beside it was covered with enough bolts of fabric and colourful, half-sewn robes to supply a small tailor's shop. And there were trinkets everywhere—jewelry, mostly, made of shell and wood. 

It wasn't the kind of room I'd expected someone like Flea to have, but there he was, lying on the bed, curled into a ball. There were no blankets, or he'd flung them off, which led me to the interesting discovery that Flea had a tail. Oh, not a very big one, just a stump about the length of my hand, but it was the first proof I'd seen that he wasn't really human. 

"You've never seen this before, have you, cub?" Caeron asked softly. "I take it you didn't have any older brothers or sisters." 

I shrugged. I'd chosen my method of dealing with questions about my past early on—stony, indifferent silence—and I wasn't about to change it now. 

Caeron leaned back in his chair. "Magic and the Metamorphosis are the two things that link us as Mystics, distinguishing us from humans and ordinary monsters. It's more violent for some races than others—naga and imps, for instance, just go through a very rapid growth spurt, shedding their skins repeatedly over the course of a few days, rather than entering crisis like this. There's no telling what yours will be like, I'm afraid—I wish I could be more reassuring, but there are half-a- dozen human-seeming races and there's no telling which one you belong to, since I assume you don't know." 

I offered only another shrug. Then, right on cue, my stomach growled again. 

Caeron chuckled. "I'm sorry—I had supper brought in the same way I always do, then forgot to take yours down to you. Here." He handed me a covered plate, and after a moment's thought, I sat down cross-legged on the floor to eat. 

The Mystic mage didn't seem inclined to let me do so in silence, however. "Flea's mother and I were of two different races," he said, staring at his son's still back. "That he was born at all was a miracle. If he survives this . . . it will be another. If he awakens healthy, in a body that he can accept and live with . . . I scarcely dare hope for so much." 

I forced myself to concentrate on my meal, although, truth be told, I was on the verge of bursting into tears again. It was as though the deep and abiding love Caeron bore for his son burned me. Only Schala and my father had ever looked at _me_ that way. 

Schala . . . 

"I'll be downstairs," I said abruptly, and rose to my feet, leaving my half-finished plate on the floor. 

Alone in the study, I could cry if I wanted to. Until my soul was, in some measure, cleansed, and my resolve to see Lavos dead renewed. 

* * *

Flea remained in crisis for two more days. Slash was in and out of the tower repeatedly during that time, and it gradually dawned on me that those two truly were close. 

I forced myself to continue both halves of my training regimen, the magical and the physical, as though life in the tower were still normal, although, truth be told, I was somewhat worried about what would happen if Flea died and Caeron's grief was violent enough that I was removed from his care. The other orphaned Mystic cubs at Ozzie's castle lived in barracks, and I wasn't sure how long I would be able to continue to conceal my humanity under those conditions. 

I didn't let myself worry directly about Flea or Caeron. Sometimes, I could even push them completely out of my mind, when the world offered a large enough distraction. New spells worked well. So did especially painful bruises. 

It was the same as with the cubs at arms practice, really. I wasn't going to put down roots in this time and place. Nothing except Lavos mattered. I told myself that over and over again, forcefully, whenever pain made me falter or want to reach out. I was doing this for Schala, for my mother, for Alfador, Zeal, and myself. I'd known it wasn't going to be easy, and I wasn't going to give up. 

Flea survived his crisis, of course, but afterwards, he was . . . different. I understood that instantly when I saw him again, manoeuvring carefully down the stairs with Slash's help. And it wasn't just because he was about a foot taller and wearing a colourful, elaborately embroidered robe, either. The way he moved had changed, become less abrupt, and his face was softer and fuller, and . . . were those _breasts_ I could see outlined under his robe? Not . . . quite, I decided, or at least a woman with a chest like that would have been thought of as flat, but it was more loose flesh than a man as slender as Flea should have had there. 

"Congratulations," I offered gruffly, because Caeron had mentioned that that was what you were supposed to say. 

Flea giggled. "Thank you, Magus . . . but you don't have to look so sour when you say it. Your time will come soon enough." 

"Not before mine, I hope," Slash growled, moving a half-step closer to his friend. I'd never seen him look so protective before. It was kind of funny, really, since Flea was now several inches taller than he was. 

"Well, of _course_ not, darling." _Darling?_ "If you don't reach Metamorphosis within a year, I'm going to be really disappointed." Flea patted Slash's arm. _What the . . . ?_ I'd seen servants at the Palace in the throes of romance, so I at least had a name for what I was witnessing here, but between two male Mystics not even of the same species? 

Looking back on it now, I'm amused by my mystification, but at the time, well . . . homosexuality was frowned on in Zealish society, and I'd been sheltered from it without even realizing it. I suppose that my confusion was inevitable, really. 

I fled the room before my head started to hurt any more than it did already. It didn't help, though. When I got to the practice yard, Flea and Slash were already there, talking to Master Tezza. I did my best to ignore them, but it was hard. 

Flea and Slash formally became an item after Slash achieved his Metamorphosis that summer. By that time, I'd learned that although the preferred pattern for love and romance amongst most Mystics is similar to that among humans, the skewed gender distributions of some species meant that they couldn't afford to be too picky, and mixed-breeds like Flea weren't exactly considered prime spouse material anyway. Slash was considered a loss to his breeding community, but a minor one—they had enough males, but his increasing martial skills made him a prime catch. 

It occurred to me one day as I watched Slash—a foot and a half taller since his Metamorphosis, but still the same lean, dangerous Greater Imp swordsman—bossing the senior cubs around that the Mystics had to be dying out, as a species, or rather as a group of species. In every generation, there were many who didn't find mates, or entered non-reproductive mixed- breed or same-sex pairings. And most fertile pairings only produced two or three cubs. The population _had_ to be shrinking. 

_And it isn't my problem,_ I told myself firmly. By that time, I'd been in the sixth century for almost half a year, and the detached coldness was coming much easier . . . although I suppose I've always been a cold and detached person, even as a young child in Zeal. Perhaps it's even part of the mixed blessing that goes with powerful shadow magic. 

But I'm getting ahead of myself. Autumn, then, of the year 582AD, my first year in the future, was also the time Caeron chose to introduce me to contemporary human society, or what passed for it, by getting Ozzie's permission to take me to the harvest festival in Porre. 

To say that I was not impressed as I looked around the human town would be . . . considerably understating matters. True, it was better than the Earthbound cave village that still lives in my memory, but far, far less than even the smallest outlying settlement of the glory that was Zeal. I didn't yet understand that the likes of Zeal would never come again. After Lavos had broken the Enlightened Ones, human evolution had taken a different turn, one that meant that no other magic-based civilization of such power would ever emerge. 

Porre was a town of dirt and wood, built by sheer hard work rather than spellcraft. The houses were tiny, the buildings crowded together into little huddles, so close to one another that they blocked the light from each other's windows. They'd tried to hide the worst of the ugliness with garlands of fresh-cut greenery, but to my eyes it was still just as unsightly as Ozzie's keep. 

Even such a small festival attracted enough strangers to the town that we didn't stand out too much—a little bit, yes, Caeron's robes and my long blue hair guaranteed that, but not so much that anyone did more than look a little longer than they otherwise might have before turning away. 

My mentor had given me a bit of money, the two or three copper half-pennies that any boy might have brought to the fair, and I'd been told before we'd entered the human settlement that I was to go off on my own and look around, but try to avoid attracting attention to myself. So I wandered among the stalls, looking for anything interesting. Most of it was either food or junk—crudely carved wooden trinkets, worn clothes, rough pottery—but here and there . . . There was one potter who had a feel for his material and created work which, while plain, had fine, graceful lines. And among the worn blades of a weapon stall at the edge of the fair, I found one dagger with a hilt of fine silverwork and a sheath of whisper-soft black leather . . . That I would have bought, liking its combination of beauty and practicality, but the price the stallkeeper quoted when I spoke to him was so far beyond my means that even if I'd had any conception of how to haggle, I doubt I could have gotten him down to less than two pennies. 

I was a bit starved for beauty, I think. In Zeal, it had been all around me, to the point where I took it for granted, but the squalid environs of Ozzie's castle contained little of it. That wasn't to say that there were no fine craftsmen at all among the Mystics—like Flea and his surprising skill with a needle—but beauty for the sake of beauty is the domain of folk with leisure, and the Mystics, struggling as they were for survival, had little of that. 

Human children of about my age, three or four of them, ran past me as I turned away from the weapons stall, and I found myself frowning at them. Useless brats—how could they afford to be so carefree? Didn't they have training or lessons or chores? 

The path of a living weapon isn't an easy one, and I was still young enough at the time to resent the need for my self- imposed discipline. Even the Mystic cubs might have been permitted to relax a bit on a festival day—and indeed, on the rare occasion that Ozzie declared such an event, they did—but I didn't permit myself any such freedoms. 

I probably would have let them drop out of my awareness again if I hadn't heard a yowling sound from somewhere nearby. A . . . cat? Someone was hurting a cat? 

I was running before I knew it, images of Alfador flashing through my head. He'd made exactly that tortured sound when Dalton had once struck him and broken three of his ribs. Schala had gotten me a tonic for him, and I'd grimly forced him to drink it, or he might not have lived. 

I burst between two stalls to find those four boys who had raced past me earlier surrounding . . . no, not Alfador. Of course not. The creature that lay on the ground in the middle of the group was a common brown tabby cat, not one of the lavender-tinged Royal Silvers bred to ornament the palace of Zeal. But that didn't mean I was about to abandon it there to be kicked to death . . . because that was what it looked like they were doing. Kicking the little animal. Hurting it for no reason while they laughed and egged each other on. 

It wasn't just because I've always had a soft spot for cats—which I do. They're intelligent, independent creatures with good judgement, and I respect them. It was the boys' cruelty that infuriated me. Not that I can't be cruel myself, when I believe it necessary or useful, but what could a cat ever have done to inspire such wrath in a human? They were hurting it for _nothing_ , and that's the way of Lavos. 

Or at least, that's how I rationalized the whole thing afterwards. At the time, I just lunged forward, shouldered between two of the boys—they were bigger than I was, of course, but I'd had six months of Slash's relentless training to teach me how to evade someone's grip, and I took them by surprise— scooped the cat up despite its attempts to claw me, and, with a deftly planted elbow, made an opening through which to get away again. 

They ran after me, of course, after that first stunned instant, but I had a head start by then . . . and an advantage. Ducking into the narrow space between two cottages, I whispered a phrase in High Zeala and made a small hand gesture, drawing a wisp of shadow down to cloak myself. It was the first time I had used my magic under field conditions, and I was proud that it worked so beautifully. They ran right past me without so much as a glance in my direction. 

Then the cat I was cradling in the crook of my arm made a small, pained mewling sound, and I sat down on the ground with my back against a building to examine my rescuee. 

It purred and kneaded weakly at my leg with its claws when I stroked its head, but I could tell there was something wrong, and it didn't take me long, once I knew, to find the spot where its spine bent too sharply and in the wrong direction, just behind its shoulders. 

They'd broken its back, and I realized suddenly that the Black Wind was whispering around us, so softly that the noises of the festival would have drowned it out if it had truly been a sound rather than just a perception of one. 

Now, a good water-element, or an elixir, can sometimes knit even a severed spinal cord back together, but I had neither. There were a couple of moderately-skilled water- users at Ozzie's castle, but I doubted I'd get the cat back there alive in its present state . . . and even if I did, I doubted I'd be able to get them to agree to work on an animal. 

There was no way to save it, so I did the only thing I could. I whispered another phrase of High Zeala, to create for the little creature an illusion of pleasure and peace. And then, once it relaxed, I gritted my teeth, shifted my grip, and snapped its neck. 

The little body twitched, then relaxed, and I laid it gently on the ground as I listened to the Black Wind die down again and blinked the stinging sensation from my eyes—I didn't even recognize it as tears. Then I got up, slapped the dust off my trousers, and went to find Caeron. I wanted permission to leave Porre, because I was afraid that I was going to burst if I stayed here one moment longer. 

Finding my mentor actually didn't take all that long. All I had to do was follow the shouting. 

"This nephew of yours left a bruise the size of an eggplant on my boy's ribs! What in hell are you going to—" I'd never seen someone so red in the face as the man who was announcing his grievances to the world. Beside him stood one of the boys I'd taken the cat from, shuffling his feet and looking sullen. 

"You'll pardon me if I prefer to hear his side of the story before—Ah, there he is now. Magus! Over here." Caeron pointed to a spot right beside him, opposite the other boy. I could tell from my expression that he was angry, but now that he'd spotted me, I wasn't about to run away and hide. I slipped through the gathering crowd and took my place, realizing as I did so that it had been carefully chosen. Standing as close as I was to the other boy made it clear just how small I was by comparison. Even Slash and Tezza's training hadn't managed to put much muscle on me. I might have been eight by then, but I was still thin and short enough to pass for six. 

"This man says that you started a fight with his son," my mentor prompted me. "Would you mind telling me what happened?" 

I looked at the other boy for a moment, still shuffling and sullen. "I take it he didn't even mention the cat," I said. 

"Cat?!" the father roared. "What does some fool animal have to do with you picking a fight, boy?" 

"I'm talking about the cat your son and his friends were beating to death," I snapped. "The one I was trying to rescue. And if your son's the one I hit, I did it so that I could get away. If I hadn't, he probably would have beaten _me_ to death." The look I gave the sullen boy then . . . well, I couldn't see it myself, of course, but I expect it was a lot like the cold, malicious sneer I became known for as an adult. 

"And where is this cat now?" Caeron asked. 

"Dead," I replied curtly. "They'd broken its back. I couldn't think of anything else to do but let it go out with as little pain as possible." 

The father had subsided into an anger as sullen as his son's. "Maybe you did have a reason, brat, or thought you did, but if I ever catch sight of your face again—" 

"We're only passing through, anyway," Caeron said. "I have no objection to moving up our schedule and leaving right now. Come along, Magus." 

He grabbed my hand and pulled me through the crowd at a pace my shorter legs could scarcely manage to keep up with. His grip was crushing—if anything, he was even angrier than I'd thought he was—but the expression on his face was one of only mild irritation. 

"Damned unlucky name for a kid—" 

"Fits him, though—never seen anyone so young act so damned cold—" 

"A _cat_ , of all things—" 

That's pretty much a summary of the dozen or so scraps of conversation I overheard between there and the edge of the village. Caeron didn't stop dragging me along until we were well clear of the other humans, in the middle of a shorn grainfield. Then he turned to face me. 

"Magus, what did I tell you to do while we were in Porre?" 

"Study the humans without attracting their attention." My hand was going to be bruised when he finally let go of me, but I wasn't going to complain. Princes of Zeal don't whine—that had been beaten into me by the tutors my mother had selected. 

"No excuses, cub?" 

I shrugged, finding refuge in silence. You see, I was probably even more angry than he was. Caeron, although I didn't realize it until later, had pretty much run from Porre in fear of his life. His anger, then, was fueled by fear, but mine was clear and cold and came from deep within my core. In that moment, I utterly despised the human race. 

"You can't ever draw their attention when you're walking among them, Magus." 

I said nothing. Caeron sighed. 

"All right, then. For your punishment—when we get back to the keep, you're confined to your room for three days. No books, no lessons, and if I catch you practicing magic, I'll double it." My mentor wasn't stupid—he'd figured out exactly what I really _would_ consider a punishment. He'd seen that I was driven, although he never did find out why. 

I didn't protest. Admitting that I valued my training regimen so strongly would have meant that I'd have to explain why, and I wasn't going to do that. Does a carpenter explain to his saw why he's making this next cut, or the mason to his trowel, why he's laying this particular brick in this particular place? Of course not, and I didn't intend to explain myself to my tools, either. Not until and unless I found it useful, anyway. 

That entire incident taught me a valuable lesson, which I pondered as I lay shut up in my room for three days: misplaced compassion could cost me everything if I let it. I had a purpose. If I wanted revenge on Lavos, I had to stay focussed on what I was doing, and purge myself of softer emotions. 

* * *

I was nine years old when the Mystics first forced me to kill a human being. 

I'd just been promoted into the cubs' most senior arms class despite my small size—even Slash hadn't made it there until he was ten, but I'd been determined and had put in a lot of extra practice time—when a small group of humans invaded the Mystics' island. Tagging along on the extermination party was considered to be part of the senior cubs' education, so we were issued real armour and real weapons, and Slash formed us up in a neat little troop behind the assembled warriors. 

"Now listen up, you lot!" the Greater Imp snapped at us. "These are Guardian soldiers, not some pathetic batch of would-be colonists like the ones we got last year. They could be dangerous, and I don't want any of you getting careless. Things are going to get a bit messy when the fighting starts. _Stay out of the way,_ but don't wander too far from the rest of us, either. We may have given you real weapons, but you're not supposed to have to _use_ them." 

"Yes, sir!" We were supposed to all say that together, but I just mouthed the words, hefting the spear I'd been given. I'd never had a real one before, just weighted practice weapons, and the balance felt odd. 

We trotted down to the beach in the wake of the real fighters. With so many different species and body-styles, it was nearly impossible for either group to keep a neat formation. I found myself jogging along in a sort of gap between the older cubs from the longer-legged species and the ones like the imps, who would never be able to run all that fast no matter what they did. Slash was bringing up the rear and berating the stragglers, but it didn't seem to be doing much good. 

We came to a ragged halt at the edge of the forest, where we'd have a good view of the beach but not get caught up in the fighting, and the cubs drifted apart into the usual little knots of friends and allies. Slash, apparently out of patience, just rolled his eyes and let it happen. 

I ended up standing alone in the shadow of the trees, a little distance from everyone else, watching the fight intently. That was probably why I didn't hear anyone sneaking up behind me until a hand was clapped over my mouth and I was pulled back into the bushes, dropping my spear in the process. 

I tried to struggle, but whoever was holding onto me was bigger than I was—not that that was unusual—and stronger, too. 

"Are you crazy?" someone was whispering in my ear. "Stop thrashing! There are Mystics all over here! And what in hell were you doing standing out in the open not ten feet from them, anyway?" 

_This is a human,_ I realized. _And he thinks he's rescuing me._ It was a hilarious idea . . . but if he'd gotten here a few years later, it might actually have been true. 

I went limp and passive, flipping through options in my head. I couldn't win a physical fight against whoever-this- was. I might be able to extricate myself using magic, but it would be messy, and if I made a mistake, I might easily end up dead before I got anywhere near Lavos, which was unacceptable. The only other thing I could do was play along. 

No, calling for rescue didn't occur to me. That would have been a weakling's way of dealing with the problem, and I refused to appear weak. Not for any reason. 

"That's better," the human breathed, removing his hand from my mouth. "I'm Cyrus, by the way, and this is Glenn." I hadn't noticed the other boy before—he had green hair and freckles and looked like he might be about my age. He also looked like he'd been crying. To complete my picture of my captors, I twisted around and got a quick look at Cyrus' muscular arms and handsome face. He was obviously older than me— maybe even the same age as Flea and Slash. "We didn't know there was another squire along on this. What's your name?" 

Calling myself "Magus" probably wasn't a good idea here, and I'd promised myself that I would never again be "Janus", not in this era, but the only other name I could come up was, " . . . Alfador." 

"Okay, then, Alfie," Cyrus whispered. "We figure that, since they're not looking for us, we can probably make a break for the boats once the Mystics are done, down below." 

"You don't sound too happy about it," I replied. 

"Are you out of your mind, or do you just hate your mentor that much?" Cyrus' voice was as fierce as a whisper could manage to be. "I should be down there with them, fighting, but Sir Lyulf told me that, since I'd gotten Glenn into this, I should be the one to get him out of it, too." 

On cue, Glenn began to cry . . . but silently. I rolled my eyes. 

"We should try to get further from the Mystics," I told them. _I don't want anyone to catch me in this ridiculously humiliating situation._ "Up the slope. We'll have better cover deeper in the forest." 

"You're being really careful, all of a sudden, for someone who was standing right in front of them in the open." 

"I knocked a human-looking one over the head and stole his armour," I lied. "That seemed to be enough to make them think I was one of them." 

Cyrus looked at me with what actually seemed to be respect. "That was . . . pretty smart. I hadn't really noticed, but there _are_ a few that look almost human, aren't there?" 

"No more small ones, though," I pointed out, just in case he started to get ideas. 

" . . . Damn, you're right about that, too. Okay, let's give a shot at moving back into the forest. Glenn, are you going to be okay?" 

The green-haired boy wiped his eyes and nodded. 

What was the easiest way to get rid of them quietly? I tried to think as we crawled slowly through the underbrush. I couldn't . . . didn't want to . . . I had their names now, so they were _people_ to me. It wasn't like breaking the neck of a crippled cat. 

We found a ring-shaped thicket wrapped around a big tree that left an open area at the center, and somehow managed to worm through the thorns and into the free space. 

"So I guess we wait now," Cyrus said, leaning back against the trunk of the tree. "Glenn, you going to be okay?" 

"Uh-huh." It was the first time I'd heard the green- haired boy say anything. 

"What about you, Alf?" 

"I'm not made of glass," I snapped. 

"Whoa, there. I know you're not . . . you'd probably have been just fine even if I hadn't rescued you, wouldn't you?" 

"I never asked you to do anything for me." 

"No, I guess you didn't. Say, how old are you?" 

I didn't see any reason not to tell him. " . . . Nine." 

Cyrus blinked. "You really _are_ younger than Glenn, then. You don't act like it, so I figured you were just a runt." 

"I don't have time to be a child." I hadn't meant to say that, but it was true, and on quite a deep level. Lavos would wait for me, but I didn't want to wait for him. 

"Your parents might not agree with that." 

"My parents are dead." 

"Oh. Sorry. That's why you became a squire so young, isn't it? You must have lied about your age—I mean, I haven't found anyone who would take Glenn on officially, yet." 

I scowled and looked away. 

" . . . You're not much for small talk either, are you?" 

I shrugged. 

" . . . Guess not." 

After that, there was blessed silence. That didn't mean that it was pleasant sitting there in the forest and waiting for the noises from the battle to stop, though. For one thing, both the human boys stank, thanks to their lack of the personal grooming spells used in one form or another by Enlightened and Mystics alike. And for another, I couldn't seem to find a position where I wasn't being poked at by branches and roots. 

"I can't hear the fighting anymore," Glenn whispered after a while. 

"That doesn't mean they've cleared out yet," I muttered back. "We wait." 

"Yeah," Cyrus agreed. 

And so we did. We stayed there until the sun had dipped halfway behind the horizon and my buttocks were numb from sitting in the same uncomfortable position for too long. 

" . . . Probably good enough," Cyrus eventually muttered, and began to crawl back out of the thicket. I would have waited until full dark, but I had a feeling there wasn't going to be any arguing with the older boy . . . and anyway, they didn't have the advantage of being able to use night-vision spells. Earthbound were so limited. 

Still, I was the last to emerge from the thicket, following Glenn, who had a faint blue aura that I hadn't noticed before, probably because I hadn't been looking for it. The green- haired boy was a water-element, although not an active one. _If Slash and the others catch up to us, I might be able to save at least one of them, if I can remember that catalysis spell . . . Why do I care?_

I'd made a serious mistake, I realized. They really _were_ people to me now, and I'd gone from not wanting to be the one to kill them to actually wanting to save them. Misplaced compassion, and I was angry at myself for being so stupid. But I didn't see that there was anything I could do about it—some vital boundary had been passed, and I found myself unable to quash the emotion. 

_Well, then. Let's do this right, and hopefully no one will ever know._

I breathed the words of a concealment spell, barely doing more than mouthing them. To a properly trained Enlightened One, or even someone like Caeron, the spell would have been as good as a beacon pointing out our position . . . but most of the Mystics never bothered to train their subtler perceptions, so I thought it was worth the risk. 

I'd reckoned without one thing, though, because I'd assumed that no one would care if I disappeared for a while. I'd been wrong. 

It wasn't a large search party—Caeron didn't have all that much authority, even if he was Head Mage—but he and Flea and Slash were all combing the area, as I discovered later. As the Guardian boys and I worked our way down to the beach, past abandoned camping gear, scuffed-up dirt and grass, and a couple of bodies, we were racing against time. 

When we spotted the first body, Cyrus' spine stiffened, and Glenn started crying and ran toward it. Very deliberately, I tripped him. 

Cyrus and I exchanged looks. 

"You'll have to carry him," I said gruffly. "I'm not strong enough." Not without using a spell to enhance my muscles, anyway, and there was no way the older boy would fail to notice that. 

"I'm not sure I can do it for long either," Cyrus replied, but he bent down and slung the green-haired boy across his shoulders in an awkward carry. 

At that point, we abandoned all caution (except for my concealment spell) and tried to hurry toward the smallest boat. Even it had probably be intended for four grown men, but I thought that, if we could get it launched, Cyrus might be able to handle it alone . . . although I was completely ignorant with regard to boats. Caeron had taken me from the island more than once, but we'd always teleported across the strait to the _other_ island, and then taken the tunnel to Zenan, without involving any boats. 

Then a fireball struck the sand in front of us, turning a section of it to molten slag. 

"Stop!" shouted a familiar voice. 

I dropped the concealment spell and turned to face the pursuit. _Damn you, Flea._

Cyrus got a few steps ahead of me, carrying Glenn, before he realized that I wasn't following him, and stopped. 

"Alf—" 

"Get out of here, you idiot," I snapped. 

"But—" 

"I'll be fine." 

"Are you crazy? The Mystics will kill you!" 

Out of patience, I spun around, bit out three words in High Zeala, and pointed down. Shadow Daggers wasn't very good as a damage-dealing spell, but it produced a nice eruption of sand and a hole twice the size of my head. 

Cyrus' eyes got very, very big. 

"They don't kill their own," I said harshly. "Especially not cubs— _children_ ," I corrected myself. "Ozzie may have me whipped for helping you, but I'm not expecting anything worse. Now, _go_." 

He was already backing away. Well, so much the better. After a moment, when I didn't move, he turned and ran for the boat, with Glenn jouncing on his shoulder. 

"That was stupid," Flea said, scrambling down the beach to stop beside me. Cyrus had dumped Glenn in the boat and was pushing it out into the water. 

I shrugged. Silence had been my refuge for a while by then. 

"Never mind whipped—you'll be lucky if Ozzie doesn't have you _crippled_." 

That did send a cold sensation oozing down my spine. Crippled . . . unable to take the fight to Lavos . . . 

"For now, you're my prisoner, cub," Flea added, grabbing me by the back of my collar and speaking a blinding spell. 

I didn't bother to fight him, even as darkness descended on me. I was too busy contemplating the horror that he had spoken about. _Crippled . . . might as well return myself straight to the Sea of Dreams . . ._

I was beginning to think that I should have gone with Cyrus . . . but that would have meant interrupting my training in magic, and then I definitely wouldn't stand a chance against Lavos. With my powers, even with a twisted, broken body, I might be able to . . . to . . . 

Flea always did have a slight sadistic streak. He left me to my horrified thoughts until the spell wore off, by which time we were back at Ozzie's fort, in one of the many empty rooms that littered the ground floor. 

Mere minutes after that, Caeron descended on us like a bird of prey. "Magus, are you all right? Flea, what did you do to him? He looks—" 

"I found him helping two human children escape." 

"You . . . _WHAT?!_ " 

Caeron stared at me for what seemed like forever. I forced myself to meet his eyes, to keep my head up and my shoulders back. A Prince of Zeal must never appear to be a coward—that, too, had been drummed into me. 

Then my mentor sighed and looked down at his feet. "Apparently, I haven't been teaching you quite the right way. Come with me. And, Flea? Not a word of this to anyone." 

"Ooh, I don't know, it makes such a good story—" 

" _Flea!_ " 

"Oh, all right." The younger Mystic pouted. 

I followed Caeron down a hallway and out into a courtyard. I could sense Flea behind me, but I wasn't about to give him the satisfaction of admitting I knew he was there. 

The courtyard was packed with other Mystics. At first, I couldn't see more than a forest of legs, because I was so short, but Caeron led me to the front of the crowd, and then stepped aside and put his hand on my shoulder. 

_I thought it was odd that we only found three bodies on the beach,_ I thought numbly. 

The other eight knights had been captured alive and brought back. Now they were tied to posts embedded in the ground. Stripped of their armour, they didn't look very impressive—just a bunch of youngish, muscular Earthbound of the type who had been chosen to work at the Ocean Palace. None of them showed even the least glimmer of magic. 

"Oooh, Ozzie's getting _mad_!" The bulky green Mystic was at the far end of the row, where he appeared to have been making unsuccessful attempts to taunt the only knight who wasn't gagged. 

"Lord Ozzie!" my mentor called. 

Ozzie turned. "Caeron! I was wondering if you'd be able to join us. And you even found the cub! Good for you." 

"Lord Ozzie, I would like Magus to participate in the execution." 

"What . . . _Why?_ " 

"Because prospective spies need . . . certain special training. I don't want him identifying too much with humans, and he was among them for too long before we found him. Last year, he was too young for this, but I think he's ready now." 

My feelings were . . . oddly split. On the one hand, I wasn't going to be crippled—that sent a wave of relief through me. On the other hand, having to involve myself in killing a person . . . Schala would have hated that. If I returned to the Sea of Dreams with blood on my hands, she would turn her face away from me. On the third hand (some Mystics had four, so the metaphor didn't feel at all odd), if I couldn't bring myself to kill so weak a creature, how was I ever going to face Lavos? 

It was the first time I'd really understood that avenging my sister was going to mean turning myself into something she would never have wanted to get anywhere near. Schala . . . hadn't especially valued strength. She'd always felt that love and cooperation were more important. 

But no one in this time was going to have any interest in helping me with my mission to avenge a civilization that had fallen thousands of years before any of them were born. I had to be able to do it alone. 

"Magus?" 

I blinked up at Caeron, who was holding a knife out to me. I also noticed that they'd pulled up the stake to which the human at the end of the row was bound, and laid it—and him—on the ground. 

It was obvious what they wanted me to do. 

I took the knife, and walked past Caeron, past Slash and Flea. Past Ozzie. The human was watching me—watching my face, not the knife. Red sunset light was pouring down over him, making it look like he was already bloodied and dead. 

I stood in front of the helpless, bound man, holding the knife, and wished fervently that I was somewhere else—that I was back in Zeal's Palace, with Schala holding me. I couldn't think of anywhere else I would be safe from this. 

"Boy." 

I looked down. 

"I'm sorry. That they're making you do this." He was the oldest of the knights, or at least the one with the most grey in his hair—their captain? 

That galvanized something inside me. I knelt down, flicking my wrist to bring the knife in my hand around into a proper fighting grip. 

"I didn't ask for your pity," I said in my coldest, most remote voice. And struck. 

Cutting the carotid artery is a messy way of killing someone. Blood spurted out, spraying the front of my leather armour. 

I wiped the knife clean, rose to my feet, and turned . . . to find Caeron crowding close behind me. 

"Here," I said emotionlessly, offering him the knife. I waited until he'd taken it to begin threading my way through the crowd, back out of the courtyard. 

Somehow, I managed to wait until I was out of sight before I started running. I tore through a disused section of the fort until I reached a gap in the wall beside the ravine that served the place as a moat, and knelt there for a long time, retching, until the urge to do so subsided. Fortunately, I hadn't had anything to eat since that morning, so I didn't actually bring anything up, although my mouth tasted of bile. Then I curled myself into a miserable little ball, with my knees pressed against my chest, my armour still sticky with blood, and wished for my sister, or at least my cat. 

"This isn't how I wanted things to be," I whispered to no one in particular, blinking back the tears that were prickling at my eyes. 

That was how Caeron found me, some time later—I don't know exactly how _much_ later, although the last hint of sunset had faded from the sky. 

My mentor crouched down and opened his arms as though to hug me, but I gave him the same cold look as I'd offered the knight I'd killed. 

Caeron sighed and lowered his arms. "Magus . . . I know this is difficult for you. I was afraid it would be. But you have to remember that humans are not like us. Given the opportunity, they slaughter us as mercilessly as we do them. Because of your appearance, you tend to take their forbearance for granted. That's unwise. Did you know that three imps were killed today?" 

"Why should I care?" I asked. 

Caeron slapped me. I was more shocked than hurt: I'd taken far worse on the practice field, but Caeron himself had never struck me before. 

"You're a Mystic, cub. One of us. If you have a place, it's here. The humans will never accept you. Either you accept that you belong to us, _and act like it,_ or you will spend the rest of a very short life living like a hunted animal, homeless and friendless." 

I said nothing, rubbing my face where it still stung. 

Caeron made a disgusted noise, deep in his throat. "You are ten times more difficult to deal with than Flea was at your age, did you know that? He at least _talked_ to me. He lied a fair amount, too, but at least it gave me somewhere to start. You, on the other hand, are like a stone. Every expression on your face is calculated, if you're where you think anyone can see you. It's been two years since we brought you here. Don't you think that it's time you opened up to us? At least a little? We might be able to _help_ you, Magus." 

"What would you do," I asked him, "if I told you that I wanted to break the world?" 

A moment's silence. Then Caeron spoke. 

"I really hope that was a joke, cub. Or a test." 

I threw a pebble down into the ravine. A joke? A test? It was and it wasn't. I was _willing_ to break the world to get at Lavos, if that was what it took, but it wasn't an end in itself. 

"Well, just remember that you don't have to be alone. Whenever you decide you're ready to talk, I'll be there." 

He was wrong, of course. I _did_ have to be alone. I would suffer nothing that would dilute my focus—no love, and no friendship. I hadn't even tried to get myself another cat, for fear that it would hold me back. 

"Get up." 

I blinked. "Why?" 

"Because there's a celebration going on, and you're _supposed_ to be part of it. Everyone who killed a human today is." 

I snorted in disgust. _Of course_ Ozzie would be handing out rewards for slaughtering helpless prisoners. The green coward probably even thought it was _brave_. 

They'd built bonfires in the courtyard where the prisoners had been held, and were roasting the stripped corpses, using the very poles they'd been tied to as spits. The smell made my mouth water . . . and when I realized what was happening, I also felt filthy. _I can't actually . . . can't actually have wanted, even for a second . . . Schala, help me!_

But my sister wasn't there, and there was no help to be found. 

Caeron led me to a seat at the same table as Ozzie. It was supposed to be an honour, but all it really did was draw everyone's eyes to me, because I was the only cub there. Even Ozzie's own offspring didn't sit with him during banquets. Instead, they ambled around on stubby feet, hid under tables, and got tangled in everyone else's legs—they were all very young, too young for weapons training. 

Just then, I envied them a lot. 

Slash, who was sitting on my left, passed me a serving dish. "You didn't do that badly today, cub, even if you did get lost. You'll have to work on your sense of direction." 

Everyone laughed, except me. 

The dish held something cooked in a brown sauce. It wasn't until I prodded at one of the lumps with the serving spoon that I realized what they were. 

Human fingers. 

I wanted to retch again. I wanted to hide in my sister's skirts. But there were a lot of eyes on me, and I didn't dare look weak in front of them. I had to show them that I was a Mystic, and strong. 

So I spooned a couple of fingers out onto my plate, picked up my fork, and slowly forced myself to bring one to my mouth. 

It tasted quite good, in its spicy-sweet sauce. 

Somehow, that made the whole thing even worse. 

* * *

My second visit to Porre was not at all like my first. 

I was a little surprised when Caeron decided to stop just before sunset and camp a mile or so from the town, but I figured it was because he wanted to enter the settlement in the morning, do whatever we had come here to do, and then leave again before nightfall, to avoid having to spend the night in close quarters with humans. By then, I had some idea of what Caeron's robes hid—among other things, a tail much longer and thicker than his son's—and knew that it was difficult for him to hide what he was if he had to take any of his clothes off. Even those omnipresent gloves concealed an extra joint in each thumb and thick, discoloured nails that tended to break off in points. 

And so I said nothing as we sat facing each other over a campfire, sipping honey-laced mint tea. I was again a bit surprised when Caeron started fumbling through the small pack he always carried with him on these expeditions, but I thought he just wanted an ether or something like that. 

My attention sharpened when he instead pulled out a narrow, cloth-wrapped bundle the length of his forearm, because I'd never seen him with anything like it before. 

"Come here, Magus. I have a gift for you." 

I set my mug down, turning it a few times from side to side to ensure that its base was embedded in the uneven soil and wouldn't fall over, rose to my feet, and walked around to his side of the fire to receive the bundle. Watching Caeron out of the corner of my eye, I broke the string that was holding the thing together, unwrapped the cloth . . . and almost dropped the contents. 

The hilt of the dagger was of ebony, slender enough to fit comfortably in my small, nine-year-old hand. The scabbard was of the same wood, inlaid with mother-of-pearl in a simple geometric pattern, and there was a dull red garnet set into the pommel. The blade, when I drew it, was plain steel, lacking the ripple patterns that I'd learned were characteristic of the best sixth-century blades, but not _badly_ made. 

"You can place whatever spells you want on it—I left it blank," Caeron said. 

"Cubs aren't supposed to own weapons," I said, sheathing the dagger. 

"Normally that's true, but I managed to convince Ozzie that you were a special case. You know better than to treat a blade like a toy . . . and you're going to put it to use. Tonight." 

I attached the dagger to my belt. "To do what?" I asked suspiciously. 

Caeron frowned into the fire. "The reason we're here is to kill a man named Kennick. He's a member of the Porrean town council, and he's proposed that Porre send human colonists to the Mystic Isles—our home. Ozzie and I are hoping that, with him dead, the idea will be abandoned." 

I remember thinking, cynically, that Caeron had to have proposed the idea, because Ozzie would never come up with anything so carefully targeted. Actually, I wasn't yet cynical enough, because I didn't realize just how hard Ozzie was working to keep from entering open conflict with Guardia and its client states . . . but that would have been a little much for so young a child to figure out, even one who had spent his entire life to date around politics. 

"And you want me to kill this . . . Kennick," was what I said. 

"Yes," Caeron told the flames. "Your shadow magic skills should allow you to sneak quietly into the town, knife him in his sleep, and sneak out again without drawing any attention. Easier by far than poisoning him, which is what I usually have to do." 

I was able to take it more calmly, this time. One kill or a hundred . . . Schala would have said that it didn't make a difference, that the value of even a single life is infinite and you can't have more than infinity. If the blood on my hands could never be washed away, reddening them again shouldn't matter. 

"What does this man look like, and where can I find him?" I asked. 

Hours later, I was padding along the Porrean streets with shadows wrapped around me. I found Kennick's house easily enough—there really weren't all that many two-storey buildings—and used a simple non-elemental spell to pick the lock and another to deaden any noise that might have come from the hinges. I cast that second one over and over again as I climbed the stairs to the upper floor, worried that something was going to creak even under my slight weight. 

The upstairs was a single room, with a bed set against the far wall. Setting my jaw, I padded cautiously over to have a look at the dark mound of bedding and occupant . . . occupant _s_ , rather, I discovered: a middle-aged man with a florid face who matched Caeron's description of Kennick, and a woman of about the same age, the laughter lines around her eyes faintly visible thanks to my darksight spell and the moonlight falling through the windows. 

The dagger slid out silently into my hand . . . and I hesitated for a moment, poised over the bed. _I don't have to do this._ I could run away right now, and Caeron wouldn't even find out until morning, by which time I'd have several hours' start on him. I could find a human family willing to take me in, and begin again. 

I could give up my revenge and spend the rest of my life hiding my magic and my history, and let Zeal—and Schala— truly die. 

_No._

My blade shot downward, smooth and swift, to take Councilman Kennick in the throat. His eyes opened wide in the instant before he died with a quiet gurgle, but he couldn't possibly have seen more than a shadowy shape. 

If my sister was still waiting for me at the edge of the Sea of Dreams, his spirit wouldn't be able to tell her that I had killed a second time . . . but someday, I would take a victim that would. I had to accept that as inevitable. 

I cleaned my dagger on the bedclothes, sheathed it, and left. 

The next day, Caeron, wrapping himself in an illusion spell, visited the town briefly around mid-morning to verify my kill. When he returned to the campsite where I stood by the ashes of the dying fire, he nodded to me without speaking and went to pick up his pack. 

* * *

It took me about four years to master every single text on shadow magic in Caeron's possession. In that time, I grew a bit—although never enough to satisfy me—and chose polearms as my specialty in weapons-work, because I liked the increased reach they gave me. 

Elemental cloaking, when I learned it, was both a revelation and a frustration. A revelation, because it opened the entire field of magic to me, unbounded by elemental affinity, but a frustration for two different reasons, one internal and one external. 

The internal one was the maddening variable effectiveness of the technique. It was excellent for attack spells, adequate for most utility spells, but attempting to heal a paper cut on my finger drained me of three times the energy that it should have and left my entire hand feeling as though I had dipped it in liquid ice. Close study led me to the discovery that elemental cloaking left a thin coating of shadow energy over the primary element of the spells I cast with it. Most of the time it didn't matter, but the life-inimical shadow clashed with healing spells. Throwing more power into the spell could force it to completion, but the shadow energy still made itself felt. The extra power requirement also made the fine manipulation of such magics nearly impossible. 

I memorized the healing spells regardless, but I knew I would never use them, except in direst extremity. 

The external problem that learning elemental cloaking brought to my attention was of quite a different sort. Examining the practical nature of the other branches of magic closely enough to permit me to cast their spells brought a deficiency in the shadow-lore that I'd been studying to my attention: simply put, the available information for all the other elements continued several levels past anything available for shadow. 

When I asked Caeron about it, my mentor only shrugged. "I don't doubt that other, higher-level shadow spells are possible, but it's likely that you'll have to discover them yourself. There may never have been another shadow-mage in history whose ability could even approach yours, Magus. You've more than lived up to your name already." 

Outwardly, I shrugged, while inwardly I cursed Lavos. How much lore had been lost with the destruction of Zeal? I had no doubt that ten minutes in the library at Kajar would have told me much of what I wanted to know . . . but instead, I had to throw myself into the study of theoretical magic and the crafting of new spells. It may have been just as well, in a sense—I was a long way from reaching my full growth, and even a child as magically gifted as I could not possibly have defeated Lavos—but the delay still infuriated me. 

The Dark Bomb spell was my first successful invention, not quite a year after I'd set out to create my own spells, but after that, my studies were abruptly cut short by an unfortunate series of events. 

Caeron, on Ozzie's orders, had continued to take me with him on some of his periodic visits to human settlements. Usually, our only purpose there was to gather information, but a half-dozen times, I'd found myself involved in assassinating this or that militia leader or prominent citizen—shadow magic made me the near-perfect hidden killer. I no longer hesitated, or wondered what my sister would think of me. I knew, and I had forced myself to accept: everything Schala had hated, I had become. 

I was alone, I would always be alone, and no one outside myself could be permitted to matter if I wanted to achieve my goal of destroying Lavos. I built my internal walls against my conscience so high that I could no longer hear the screams of the poor stunted thing on the other side. _I have no choice. My purpose requires me to do this._ It was my excuse for cold- blooded murder . . . for everything. 

Training. All of it useful, in its way. The wrong emotions could cause hesitation, and hesitation could get me killed—the lesson of the cat, writ large. Uncontrollable emotions were weakness, and I couldn't afford weakness if I was to face Lavos . . . and so I chose to purge myself of what little softness I had left. 

On the autumn day that ended my childhood, we had gone to Truce, although we seldom dared venture so far into the heart of human country. Caeron, however, had heard certain rumours that he felt it necessary to investigate. He didn't tell me what they were, of course. I was still considered a cub, despite my considerable abilities, and wasn't entitled to any kind of sensitive information. 

So it wasn't until we were there that I found out about the zoo . . . or at least, that was what the humans called it. To my mind, a more appropriate label would have been "travelling prison". 

Imagine a double row of wagon-sized cages, arranged with a broad avenue between them. Now, imagine walking between those cages and seeing people imprisoned in every one, and I don't mean vicious criminals, either. Children, half of them—or at least cubs. 

Granted, not all of the imprisoned were Mystics. There were also a sprinkling of demi-humans from the south— related creatures, but lacking the double burden of magic and Metamorphosis that went with the label of _Mystic_. However, I doubt the humans of Guardia could tell the difference. Many of the prisoners weren't in good health, and some were even dying—I could hear the Black Wind chattering at me as Caeron and I moved among the cages. Some of the older true Mystics clearly recognized us for what, if not who, we were, but Caeron silenced those who seemed about to speak with a shake of his head. 

" . . . why you're worried about these filthy animals." 

I spun around as I caught that scrap of conversation, and traced it to an armoured knight and his familiar-looking green-haired squire. 

_Glenn?_

"The Mystics aren't animals," the knight corrected, turning his head so that I got a better look at the face under the helmet. _Cyrus?_

I signaled Caeron that I was going to manoeuvre alone for a while, and slipped away from him and into the crowd before he could nod. 

Hardly anyone noticed a child threading his way between groups of people—not even a boy with long blue hair—so I was able to catch up to Cyrus and Glenn quickly and without attracting their attention. 

" . . . a Mystic saved both our lives, remember?" Cyrus was saying as I got close enough to pick their conversation out of the background noise again. 

" _You_ saved my life," Glenn corrected. 

"Without Alfador, we would have wasted precious seconds on the beach, then gotten blown out of the water by that Mystic sorcerer," Cyrus said, and sighed. "Glenn, I really don't understand how someone so gentle that he has a hard time defending himself in a fight can hate the Mystics so much." 

The younger boy stopped dead in his tracks. "Cyrus, you were _there_. You saw what happened to Sir Lyulf, and . . . Dad . . . You saw the bite marks and the chunks torn out of their bodies. _They were eating them._ They're worse than animals—animals only eat people because they don't know any better. The Mystics are . . . they're smart enough to talk, but they still . . ." Glenn made a gagging noise. 

"Fried imp is a delicacy in southern Zenan, did you know that?" Cyrus said slowly. "There are humans out there who are even worse than the Mystics. They may eat the humans that they kill, but some of us kill them just so that they _can be_ eaten." 

" _You_ fight them." 

"I've fought them. Twice, when they actually attacked us. I'm trying to protect Guardia, Glenn, not exterminate the Mystics." 

Glenn just stared at him mulishly. Cyrus sighed. 

"We're off-duty, you know. You don't have to stay with me. Go visit your mother or something, before I lose my temper completely." 

Glenn turned and walked away, his back stiff. Cyrus stood and watched him go, until the green-haired boy ducked between two wagons and vanished. 

"You can come out now, Alf." 

I muttered a curse. "How did you know I was there?" I demanded, abandoning all pretense of hiding in the shadow of one of the wagons. 

"You made the mistake of stopping moving when we did," Cyrus said. "That attracted my attention. Other than that, well . . . the hair. Guardian boys don't usually wear theirs long, and yours is a distinctive colour." 

"I think I'm going to dye it," I grumbled. 

Cyrus chuckled. "I thought you might say something like that. Um, listen, Alf, about Glenn . . ." 

"Your friend is a fool," I said coldly. "Hating the individual that killed someone dear to him is one thing, but smearing his hatred across a whole race because he doesn't know who that individual is . . . that's stupid. You can't make a satisfactory revenge out of that." 

Cyrus' good-natured smile had faded as I spoke. 

"That sounds like the voice of experience," he said. 

I shrugged. "Not exactly. And don't worry. It has nothing to do with you, or with Guardia." 

"I'll take your word for it . . . for now. But what are you doing here?" 

I made a broad, theatrical gesture that took in most of the double row of cages. "What do you think?" Caeron hadn't come out and said as much—yet—but I couldn't think of any other reason why we would have come all the way to Truce, and Cyrus wasn't completely stupid. 

"I should turn you in," Cyrus said slowly. "It's my duty as a Knight of the Square Table to protect Guardian citizens. But you know . . . I don't know for certain that whoever's running this thing _is_ Guardian. For all I know, he might be from Choras, like my parents. In which case it isn't my problem . . . and anyway, I don't like all of this either." 

"Is that why you're standing here talking with an enemy?" 

Cyrus shrugged. "Technically, we're not at war with the Mystics—not yet, at least. There's no law against you being here, and you haven't done anything yet except talk. Not to mention that it would make the Knights, and the kingdom, look pretty bad if I arrested a runty twelve-year-old, claiming he was a Mystic, and then couldn't prove it and had to let him go." 

Which was what _would_ happen, of course, since I was human—an Enlightened One, a murderer and a cannibal, but still human. 

"Cyrus! Hey, what are you doing? Talking to kids again? Come on, there's this new girl down at the Boar—" Three other young knights were approaching us, in a clump. 

"Sorry, Alf, but I have to go. Don't do anything stupid, okay?" 

Cyrus, I realized as I watched his retreating back, was that rarest of things: a genuinely good and honourable man. 

I really hoped I didn't end up having to kill him. 

I returned to the inn where Caeron had taken a room for us. My mentor was inside, writing a note which would be magically sent back to Ozzie at the fort. I wanted until he was done to ask him, "Why are we _really_ here? This isn't just another intelligence-gathering mission. I'm surprised Ozzie let you bring me." 

Caeron grimaced. "It took a fair amount of arguing, but I was eventually able to persuade him that I might need your magic. He did still insist that I not tell you anything, but I knew you were bright enough to figure things out for yourself." 

"We should have brought more people," I said. "A jailbreak of that size . . ." 

"If I could have, I would. I couldn't persuade Flea to leave Slash behind, and, well, you know how few others there are who would stand a chance of passing as human long enough to get this deep into their territory." 

I nodded thoughtfully. By then, I'd met some of Caeron's former students in the art of spying, and, well, most of them could only pass when fully clothed. That was fine for a brief visit to an outlying town like Porre, but they'd stand a good chance of being spotted if they tried to get all the way to Truce. 

You may wonder why I felt it acceptable to put myself at risk by freeing a bunch of captive Mystics when I was still so far from my goal. The truth is actually quite simple: I knew that study would only allow me to advance my abilities so far, and I'd reached the point in my preparations where its usefulness was starting to diminish. I needed a real test of my skills under, shall we say, less controlled conditions. 

I just wish I could have predicted how much of a disaster it would be. Or . . . perhaps not. I might not ever have achieved my full potential without the events that unfolded that night. 

We waited until well after dark to sneak back to the . . . zoo. Now that the spectators were gone, the area was quiet and the cages were covered, and we were able to speak with one of the older Mystics who had spotted us as not-human— a Greater Imp wind-element who had developed his powers sufficiently to learn to read auras. He told us that the locks on the cages were ancient relics that resisted most forms of magic—I suspect they'd had their long-ago origin in some Zealish prison— and that the owner of that disgusting little carnival kept the keys on his person. 

That was where things started to go wrong. 

We found the carnival's owner asleep in the wagon he used as living quarters. It wasn't locked. I used some basic shadow spells to slip in unseen, slit the man's throat, and take the keys. Then I pulled his blankets up to his chin and assumed that no one would notice anything until morning, by which time we would all be long gone. 

Neither Caeron nor I knew that the carnival-master had ordered that he be woken if a certain sick demi-human took a turn for the worse. It was our bad luck that that happened not too long after I stole the keys, and our foolishness that we'd underestimated the dead man. He'd armed his employees with bows, you see—the one weapon of that age that gives an Earthbound a decent chance of getting the drop on an unprepared mage. 

It took me one fateful instant to realize that the explosion of light that had surprised me was some sort of chemical flare, and not a spell. For Caeron, that instant of puzzled surprise was fatal. He didn't react in time to the initial volley of arrows. One took him high in the back, between the shoulders and slightly to the left of the spine, and he crumpled to the ground. 

I saw that out of the corner of my eye as I took two running steps in the direction of the nearest wagon, hoping to get some shelter by diving underneath it. 

I didn't make it. 

That I was hit could have been considered bad luck again—I was a small target. Or perhaps one of the archers was better than average. All I knew for certain is that I felt a sudden line of fire in my side, and, reaching down to investigate, found the fletchings of an arrow under my fingers. 

I pulled it out, which was stupid, because it turned a trickle of blood into a steady stream that I couldn't seem to stanch. I fell to my knees beside Caeron and shook him, hoping for help, but after a moment, it penetrated into my shocky brain that he was already dead. The Black Wind was howling around me, drowning out my thoughts. 

Shaking, I clamped my hand over the wound and whispered the words of a healing spell which flared, sputtered, and died under the weight of the shadow magic coating it. I swore in High Zeala, coughed, spat blood. 

_Is it all going to end here?_ I thought numbly, staring at the red patch on the grass. _Before I reach Lavos? Before my revenge?_ Pure, cold rage flowered inside me. _I won't allow it! There must be a way! I refuse to die like this!_

I had no tonic, no elixir, and I couldn't concentrate well enough to try another elemental cloaking spell while my life ran out between my fingers, not even in the cold clarity of my anger. The Black Wind was thundering in my ears, and I knew I didn't have much time. 

Shadow magic roiled madly inside me as I raised my free hand to clasp the amulet my sister had given me. All her hopes for me . . . Dreamstone was a channel for magic . . . Perhaps . . . 

"Do whatever you need to." Was it a spell? A prayer? I couldn't have said. "I don't care about anything else so long as I'm able to face that—" This time, the coughing wouldn't stop, and horrified, feeling blood running down my chin, I thrust magic through the Dreamstone embedded in the amulet and into my body, empowering my unfinished spell-prayer. 

I screamed, a terrible, hoarse, raw sound . . . for you see, the Black Wind wasn't just roaring at me anymore. It was inside my body and mind, twisting my perceptions out of shape and flaying away my flesh until I was certain I'd been reduced to a skeleton. Frantically, I scrabbled for even just the memory of a safe place, fighting against the darkness until I caught a glimpse of Caeron's workroom. Then the Wind roared even louder and even my anger wasn't able to keep me conscious. 

* * *

The return of awareness was a gradual thing. My memories of getting out of bed and stumbling down the stairs and along the hallways are things of movement and blurred vision, bereft of rational thought. The only thing in my mind was desperate, maddening hunger—my stomach seemed to be trying to digest my backbone. I stumbled through a doorway, smelled something delicious, and began desperately stuffing my mouth, chewing and swallowing as quickly as I could. Then, just when the pangs had quieted themselves enough that I might have been able to start to think, agony coursed through my body, things writhed under my skin, and I was suddenly starving again. 

I went through, I think, about a half-dozen iterations of that before I realized that I was in the kitchen of Ozzie's keep, two more before I realized that I was naked except for Schala's amulet, and another three before awareness truly returned and I froze into place with my hands buried in a bowl of chopped raw liver. 

Those hands . . . 

I lifted them slowly out of the bowl. They were slimy with blood, as was my chin, but I could already tell that there was something wrong. These weren't the small hands of an undergrown twelve-year-old. 

I was still hungry, and I helped myself absently to another piece of raw liver before I realized what I was doing and recoiled in intellectual disgust. The uncooked meat wasn't physically revolting to me—in fact, it tasted as delicious as it smelled—but I knew that I shouldn't have found it so. 

"It isn't really a good idea to stop, Magus. Your body knows what it needs." 

I spun around when I heard the familiar voice. Slash was staring steadily at me from where he was leaning in the doorway, and I forced myself to lower the hand that I'd instinctively raised in the beginning of a spell. 

"What happened?" I asked, and my voice seemed to belong to a stranger. 

"That's what we'd like to know—but finish eating first. Judging from what I've been seeing since you walked in here, your Metamorphosis isn't quite complete yet, and your body needs the fuel." 

I shook my head angrily, feeling my long hair slide over the bare skin of my shoulders—at least that hadn't changed. "I can't afford to let myself get into the habit of eating raw meat, Slash. Humans don't do that, and I'm supposed to be—" 

The Greater Imp looked . . . almost pitying, for a moment. "I hate to be the one to break this to you, but you're never going to be able to pass for human again without a shapeshifting spell or a damned powerful illusion. I'll get you a mirror, damnit, but you need to eat." 

I looked at the raw liver, and felt my mouth flood with saliva. But . . . I _was_ human, I shouldn't need to _pass_ for it . . . What had that half-formed spell I'd cast done to me? 

Slowly, I forced my hand to move from bowl to mouth. Chew. Swallow. Repeat. Stranger's hand, still finely shaped, but bigger than Slash's. A man's hand. Pale, pale skin under the blood I'd gotten all over myself. Why couldn't I feel blood caked under my fingernails? Stranger's arm, pale and thin. 

After a few mouthfuls, the pains hit again, and I braced myself, fingers digging, hard, into the end of the trestle table on which the bowl of liver rested. This time, conscious, I could see the muscles crawl and swell under my skin, thickening up, gaining bulk as my stomach became empty again. If this was what had been happening, I had to have looked like a living skeleton when I'd entered the room. 

I'd forced myself through another cycle before Slash got back with the mirror . . . and Flea, who actually seemed about to hug me until he got a good look at the spattered blood and figured out what it would do to his robes. 

"Magus, darling," Caeron's son cooed—he was calling _everyone_ "darling" by then, "you have _no_ idea how good it is to see you on your feet again." Then his voice became more tentative. "Um . . . My father?" 

Silently, I shook my head. 

Flea went white. His mouth rounded, as though to shape "Oh," but no sound came out, and he crumpled onto a bench. Slash gave me an exasperated look, dropped a hand mirror face down on the table, and went to sit beside his lover. 

Suddenly, eating raw meat seemed like a very good idea. If my hands were full of liver, then I didn't have to pick up the mirror. I wasn't sure I wanted to know what the other side of it would tell me. 

But after three more feeding cycles, my body seemed to have had enough and my hunger ebbed. I licked my fingers clean—no fingernails, I discovered as my tongue roamed over them, which would explain why I hadn't been able to feel anything stuck under them—and tried to wipe off my chin. Then, with no more excuses, I slowly reached for the wooden handle and flipped the damnable thing over. 

My reflection froze me in place. I looked, I thought, like some kind of revenant from the Netherworld. There was still blood on my mouth and chin, starkly visible against my new, chalk-white complexion. I hadn't even realized I had fangs until I saw them nestled there against my lower lip and used my tongue to take a quick, shocked inventory of my teeth, finding vicious points and shearing surfaces that hadn't been there before. Crimson eyes, glowing faintly in their deep sockets. My hair was still the same long, silky blue mane, but my hair _line_ was different, descending into a sharp widow's peak. And those ears . . . 

No, I would never pass for human again, not once anyone got a good look. I looked like something that _preyed_ on humans. 

I closed my eyes and forced the shock down. My appearance, I told myself, _did not matter_. Lavos wasn't going to be handing out beauty prizes, and I hadn't become so deformed that it would hamper me physically. In fact, the body whose muscles had been swelling as I ate looked like quite a good specimen, lean and long-limbed—a man's body, received as a gift some six years before I would have acquired it the normal way. And furthermore, the Mystics seemed to accept my spell-induced transformation as a Metamorphosis, proof of adulthood. I wasn't going to have to start all over again in the human world—I could gather followers right here, as part of a society that I already understood. 

"Actually, darling," Flea said warmly from beside me, "if I'd known you were going to turn out so magnificently, I might have waited for you instead of settling for Slash." 

"Hey!" The Greater Imp's voice came from behind me—in fact, I was certain of his precise position in space, about three feet away. Perhaps my ridiculous new ears were good for something after all. "You'd better have been joking," he added in response to Flea's muffled giggle. "Still, Magus, you've got a lot of . . . of _presence_ now. No wonder Lord Ozzie thinks—" Then he shut his mouth again. 

"Ozzie thinks what?" I asked sharply, eyes narrowing. 

"Lord Ozzie chose you as Dad's successor the moment we decided you were probably going to come out of crisis in one piece," Flea said. "I don't mind— _I_ didn't want something involving so much responsibility and so little power, and you're certainly qualified to be the Head Mage, but, well, no one was quite sure what _you_ would think." 

"I think Ozzie and I are going to have to have a talk," I said. Head Mage to the Mystics . . . whether I would take that position or not wasn't something I was willing to decide while standing, naked and covered in blood, in the middle of a kitchen, with three cooks carefully not-staring at me. I couldn't do anything about the "naked" part just yet, but fortunately Mystics don't hold to human ideas of modesty anyway. A pump stuck out of the floor in the far corner, and I used the water to rinse the blood off, finding the cold of it refreshing against my skin. I dried myself with a minor fire spell and turned around to find Flea offering me a bundle of dark blue cloth. 

"It won't be a perfect fit, but I figured you'd prefer not to run around bare-assed any more than you had to . . . even though it's such a _nice_ view," Caeron's son told me. "I've been working on something better for you, but you're going to have to try it on before I can finish it." 

I accepted the blue thing and shook it out, discovering it to be the same kind of loose robe that Flea himself favoured. Or it would have been loose on him—on me, it was tight through the shoulders. The colour contrasted sharply with my pale skin. 

Without a word, I turned and headed for the corridor. I'd taken two steps when I heard Flea and Slash fall in behind me, and my mouth curled into an ugly smile. 

I'd just figured out how useful a pair of loyal dupes can be. 

* * *

I adjusted the collar of my new cloak slightly, altering the way it fell. Flea had chosen it well—it was quite a dramatic garment. Between my new clothes and the light armour that Slash had contributed, my reflection in the mirror now looked like it belonged to some emperor of the Netherworld, not a mere revenant. 

"Add a hood to it," I told Flea. 

"A . . . hood?" 

I shrugged. "Slash is right that I'm not going to be able to pass for human again once anyone gets a good look at me, but with my ears hidden and my face shadowed, I may be able to confuse matters for a few crucial moments even if I can't cast an illusion spell." I unfastened the cloak and handed it back to him. "Now, why are the two of you walking so softly around me? I don't recall everyone suddenly starting to defer to _you_ after your Metamorphosis." I was starting to get used to my new, adult voice, the depth and harshness of it. 

Flea blinked. "I suppose you wouldn't be able to tell from the inside. It's your aura. It's . . . changed." 

"In what way?" I leaned back against the wall and folded my arms as Flea threaded his needle. The visible way my arm muscles bunched surprised me a little—I'd always been so thin before . . . 

"Um. Well, it isn't white and black and spiky anymore. It's . . . almost like an eclipse of the sun, really—so dark and intense that it looks like there's a glow around the edges, but I think it's just the contrast . . . But even darling Slash can sense it now, and you know he usually can't detect auras worth a damn. When we scraped you off the floor in Dad's workroom, he said it was giving him the chills just to be around you." 

I raised an eyebrow. Slash was a weak fire-element. If _he_ could sense me now, the changes in me had to be . . . profound. 

"The workroom?" I asked. "Is that where I . . . ?" I was still confused as to how I'd gotten back to the castle. 

"I found you when I went in there to look something up," Flea said. "You were lying on the floor, covered with blood and already in crisis. Magus, _what happened_? You shouldn't even be back here yet! A-and you said that Dad . . ." 

My hand rose to touch my chest, where Schala's amulet lay, now buried under layers of cloth and armour. 

"I need to report what happened to Ozzie," I admitted. "You should probably come with me—it'll be easier if I only have to tell it once." 

"Thanks, I will, but . . . wait just a moment . . . there!" Flea tied his thread off and tugged on the edge of the hood. "It buttons into place, so if you don't want it, you can just roll it up and stick it in your pocket." 

I accepted the garment and put it back on. The hood did shadow my face . . . sufficiently, so long as whoever I was facing wasn't near enough to see tiny details like my fangs. 

As Flea had suggested, I then unbuttoned the hood and slipped it into one of the many pockets that lined the cloak. 

"Let's go," I said. 

Ozzie was in . . . well, I suppose you _could_ have called it a throne room, if you'd been feeling really generous. Most of the time, it looked more like the shop of an incompetent mechanic. If Ozzie had spent even half as much time on the rulership of the Mystics as he had on building deathtraps that only a fool would fall victim to . . . Well, let's just say that I might have had a harder time taking up the reins. 

That was in the future just then, though, and Ozzie was still King. Of course, I'd never reported to him officially before and had no idea what the protocol was supposed to be, so I cast my mind back to fuzzy memories of etiquette lessons in Zeal and cleared my throat to get his attention, then, when he was looking at me, made the brief but graceful bow that was appropriate for a lesser royal greeting his sovereign, although I doubted he'd appreciate the nuance. 

"Magus. Didn't expect to see you here so soon. Anyway, Ozzie's busy—come back later." 

I frowned. I'd gathered that Ozzie's way of running things was slipshod, but this . . . "I've come to report what happened in Guardia." 

"Oh! Yes, of course." Ozzie waddled over from the machine he'd been working on and plunked himself down on the oversized chair that served him as a throne. "All right, go ahead." 

I told the story in as few words as possible, forcing myself to ignore the sound Flea made when I explained what had happened to Caeron, and then ending with, "What do you intend to do about this?" 

Ozzie blinked. "Do about it? I'm not sure I understand." 

"The humans of Guardia killed your Head Mage," I said sharply. "They're holding dozens of our people as prisoners, and using them as _entertainment_. Is that really the image we want them to have of Mystics? They need to be taught a lesson." 

I'd come to a decision while I'd been playing tailor's mannequin for Flea. My ignominious defeat by a human archer showed that not only was I not ready for Lavos, but my current preparations weren't enough. I needed real combat to train myself further. 

Under those circumstances, starting a war seemed like a perfectly logical thing to do. 

The green mass on the throne snorted. "Well, you're young yet. You can't possibly understand the _delicacy_ of making certain that our attacks on the humans are planned correctly, and . . . well, Caeron was like a father to you, after all. But—" 

My Dark Bomb spell made a nice, satisfying hole in the floor. I'd positioned it so that Ozzie didn't get vapourized, but fell in a moment later when the edges of the hole crumbled under his weight. 

I'd planned for this carefully, you see. By then I knew that Ozzie, while he talked a good game and was quite happy to pick off defenseless human stragglers, always stopped short of doing anything genuinely aggressive. I wasn't about to let him get away with that this time. 

I pushed off the intact part of the floor that I was standing on and floated through the air until I was directly over the hole—a spell I'd been practicing. It felt different now than it had before my transformation, though—almost effortless. 

I looked down at Ozzie contemptuously. "If you think that I've ever been _young_ in that way, you're even more of a fool than I thought, as well as a coward. Do you want to know what I really 'understand'? I understand that our race is slowly dwindling, hunted to extinction by the humans." I still didn't truly consider myself a Mystic, but the 'our' made for good rhetoric. "I _understand_ that if we don't force them to respect us soon, we will become too weak to do so at all. You might want to think about that, _King_ Ozzie." 

Ozzie wasn't the only one blinking up at me from inside the hole—I'd dropped him into a corner of the barracks that housed most of the fort's bachelors. Not that I minded. The more witnesses, the better, I felt. 

I suppose you could say that the legend began there. Ozzie couldn't _not_ make me Head Mage after that display unless he wanted to order me executed—and I'd been right: he was too much of a coward for anything like that. Once the stories got around, I had dozens of volunteers for the attack force, including an eager Slash and a Flea desperate to avenge his father. 

I was selective in who I took, though. I could only craft so many arrow wards—I wasn't going to be taken by surprise like that again—and so many concealment spells. For this first step, a raid deep into human territory, I also wanted only humanoid Mystics who wouldn't attract too much attention if spotted from a distance. 

It went, perhaps, the most smoothly of any operation I have ever commanded. We put in at Guardia's harbour by night and spread out to move silently through the streets. The zoo was where I'd left it—I'd suspected that the death of its owner would cause some kind of dispute that would freeze it in place for a while, and apparently I'd been right. And this time, the humans didn't realize there was anything wrong until we'd blasted open the first few cages. Furthermore, even when they did, with my arrow wards to counter their archery, they had to try to close with us—not a wise action when you're dealing with a mage. 

I floated above the battlefield, watching events unfold and listening to the Black Wind howl—I'd never commanded troops before, and I needed to be able to see what was going on. By the time I spotted the spike, and the body impaled on it, the fighting was almost over. 

I floated down to stare at Caeron's corpse. I just couldn't believe he'd been put on display like that, along with all the other squalid delights of the carnival. Someone had hung a crudely lettered wooden placard around his neck. 

It read, "TRAITOR". Apparently, they'd never figured out he wasn't a human. I couldn't believe that Cyrus had allowed this . . . but then, he was still a very junior knight, and perhaps he hadn't had the authority to stop it. 

As I stared, I realized that Ozzie, of all people, had been right: at some point, Caeron's face had crowded out my mental image of the father who had died when I was five years old. 

My mouth twisted in anger, and I snapped out a phrase in High Zeala, pointing to target the spell. 

The stake and its occupant went up in a satisfying burst of flame, and I turned away with a swirl of my cloak, only to find that I wasn't alone. Flea and Slash and several others had been watching me, and the Black Wind was dying down. 

Slash cleared his throat. "Lord Magus." That made my eyebrows rise—Caeron hadn't rated a "Lord". "We've routed the humans and freed the prisoners, but we should probably retreat soon, before forces from the castle arrive. I already have the rescuees moving toward the ship, but . . ." 

"If necessary, I'll buy us time," I said. "Well done, Slash." 

Fortunately, he didn't burst out laughing, which I'd considered a minor risk. 

Slash took a step back, leaving Flea alone at the front of the group. I waited, but all he said was, "Thank you. For my father's pyre." 

I inclined my head. I wasn't about to tell him that I'd cast the fire spell to obliterate Caeron's image and the realization that, despite all my efforts, someone from this time and place had gained an emotional hold on me. 

It was theatre, all of it, for the benefit of the volunteers that hadn't known me all that well, and of the healthier rescuees, who had lingered to watch. I was going to live up to Slash's "Lord Magus" if it killed me, because that was the path to power, which I needed now more than ever. 

* * *

The attack on the circus in Guardia was more of a prelude to the Mystic War than its opening skirmish. That came later, in the depths of winter, in weather so cold that flesh froze within less than a minute of unprotected exposure to the outside air. 

I'd heard the rumours of a dismasted fishing boat, its imp crew half-dead of cold, being washed by the waves into the harbour on the western side of the island, and so I wasn't entirely surprised when I was summoned to the throne room to attend on Ozzie while he spoke to "an ambassador from the west". 

A brief description of the Mystic nations of the middle of the sixth century may be in order here. The nonhumans were mostly confined to two large islands, or possibly small continents, east of Guardia, with Ozzie ruling the easternmost of the two. The other island had been settled by Mystics on the shore facing us, and humans on the shore facing Zenan. The humans were technically Guardian subjects, while the Mystics owed allegiance to no one in particular, although their villages were held together by a sort of loose mutual assistance pact. There were a scattering of other Mystics as well, solitary creatures living in the wilder areas of Zenan and Choras, but Ozzie's people had little contact with them. 

The imp from the fishing boat, who had to be carried into the throne room, was clearly not recovered from his ordeal. He seemed more than a little overwhelmed as he sat on the floor in front of the throne, staring up at the five of us: Ozzie, Slash, Flea, myself, and the hoary old heckran who had been leading the Mystic army since Ozzie's predecessor's day, and who was grooming Slash to replace him. Technically, Flea wasn't really supposed to be there, but I'd long since noticed that Caeron's son could always be seen at almost any court function, lurking quietly in the background, and in any case, Ozzie lacked the backbone to chase anyone out of the room. 

Somehow, the little blue creature managed to restrain himself and exchange pleasantries with Ozzie until the old heckran finally broke the mood. 

"Why are you here?" he asked. 

The imp licked his lips. "We've been having some trouble with the humans," he said in a surprisingly strong voice. 

"Trouble?" I prompted, deciding it was time that we move this along. 

"The winter's been hard, my lords. As you've doubtless noted. The humans on our island made some bad choices about what stores to lay in—they expected to be able to let those cattle of theirs out to forage, but it's been too cold and there's too much snow. So they ran out of fodder. And rather than do the sensible thing and slaughter some of their animals, they've been raiding our outlying settlements to get more." 

Yes, ridiculous though it may seem, the Mystic War began in part because a handful of humans were squabbling with other species over bales of hay. 

"We're pretty sure it's going to get worse," the imp was saying. "They can outfight us easily—most of us don't have all that much magic, and they know that now." 

Ozzie didn't seem about to say anything, so I spoke up again. "So you want us to fight your humans for you, and you offer us . . . what, in return?" 

"We will join your kingdom and make ourselves your subjects." The imp looked as though he had just bitten into a lemon, but he kept his head up. 

Ozzie waved one stumpy arm. "Magus, you take care of this—Ozzie has other things to do." 

_Ozzie's a coward, you mean_ —but I didn't say that. Instead, I asked, "And you'll support me and abide by my decisions in your name?" 

"Yes, yes, of course." 

"Very well." Did Ozzie even realize how he was undermining his own authority? I doubted it . . . but then, I'd never understood how Ozzie had risen to his present position in the first place. "General Herrein, I'll need to borrow Slash from you," I added to the heckran, who copied Ozzie's little waving- away motion. 

"I expected you would, and he's more than ready to lead an independent campaign. Good luck to you both." 

"I don't expect to need luck," I said. "Flea, Slash, you're with me. Bring our . . . friend," I added, gesturing in the imp's direction. "We have some planning to do." 

It took us three days to organize everything, but I begrudged none of it . . . although it's possible that the imp did. However, by the end of that time, we'd chosen three cohorts of soldiers, arranged transport, selected supplies, drawn maps, and hammered out a plan of attack. It was fortunate that I had come up with a method of mass-manufacturing arrow wards, because we needed more than four hundred. Bows were the main thing we needed to worry about, and even then what the humans had were likely to be repurposed hunting weapons whose arrows wouldn't be able to pierce armour—the imp had claimed that there were no professional soldiers on the island, and even Slash, although he was taking precautions against the possibility of a small trained force, thought that the imp was probably right. After all, why would an area that was normally at peace need fighters? It wasn't as though they had to fend off the sort of raids that Guardia and Porre mounted against Ozzie's people. 

Once we had everyone and everything aboard ship— more little fishing boats, because those were all the Mystics had— there was nothing to do but wait, however. I had to force severe discipline on myself to keep from pacing, badgering the crew of my boat, or conjuring up a wind that would be as likely to swamp the little craft as it would to speed it along, and by the time we reached the far shore, two days later, I was severely disgusted with the shortcomings of mundane travel. Not that I cannot be patient when I considered it necessary, but time wasted moving over the world's surface at a snail's pace could be better spent doing almost anything else. 

I had been to the western settlements previously—they had been an occasional stopover on Caeron's spying trips, although we had never stayed for long—and so I knew what we would find at the far end. The villages weren't unlike the human ones I'd visited on Zenan, although even the weak magics wielded by their inhabitants enabled them to be cleaner and better- constructed than anything the Earthbound could produce. The inhabitants of the little fishing village where we landed were mostly imps and nagas, whose houses lacked the headroom to accommodate the taller Mystic species, but they had buildings intended for taller visitors . . . and plenty of barns and boat sheds, of which we commandeered several to house our troops. 

We had a dozen village headmen clustered around us in the guesthouse as Slash and I explained the plan. It was simple enough: we would take the human villages in sequence, starting from the southeast, to avoid fighting a war on two fronts if at all possible. Ideally, we would roll the humans back and off the edge of the island in a matter of weeks. 

It didn't go quite that smoothly, of course. More than half of the population of the human settlements consisted of people who could not or would not fight: women, children, the elderly, and the crippled. We had a bunch of those left over after we took the first village—pathetic creatures huddling together in a little knot at the center of the town square, where Slash had left them while his warriors mopped up. 

I remember circling them slowly, my boots crunching on snow, while I waited for Slash to finish. Women and older girls held smaller children to them protectively. One matron had an infant in her arms and was holding a hand over its mouth to muffle the sound of its crying. Looking at them, I felt nothing . . . which surprised me at first, then pleased me, in a hollow sort of way that I knew Schala would have hated. 

"Shall we kill them, Lord Magus?" When had Slash appeared at my elbow? I hadn't even noticed him there. 

I touched my chest, where Schala's amulet still resided underneath my armour. _You'd want them to live, wouldn't you?_ I asked her ghost. Oddly, not caring about these strangers' fates made it easier to make my decision. 

"No," I told Slash. "No, let them live, and send them back to Zenan to be a burden on the other humans there. They can take with them whatever they can carry on their backs, no more. From now on, we'll be respecting surrenders as well: cripple any fighters who lay down their arms, and send them back." After all, the dead couldn't stir up a war by protesting their treatment at our hands, or help me light a fire under Ozzie's stubby green feet. 

We drove the human noncombatants before us as we moved across the island. They warned their fellows in the other villages, of course. More than once, we arrived at a settlement only to find it deserted—sometimes boobytrapped, sometimes not. At others, we found pathetic, hastily-erected defenses made of snow and sticks that were easily wiped away by fire spells. 

It often wasn't so much a military campaign as a slaughter, giving me little opportunity to practice my skills. I told myself that this was just the beginning, but the whole affair nevertheless set my teeth on edge. 

It took us roughly a month to reduce the human population of the island to a small, stubborn force trying to hold one last port town while they got as many as possible of the refugees onto ships back to Zenan. We could have fought them— indeed, I was tempted to do so even though my plans called for them to leave alive—but instead, I ordered Slash to set up camp outside the settlement. We would wait. 

It was worse than the trip across the ocean in that little boat. Over the course of the next three days, my temper grew extremely short—I think I remember flinging an imp who annoyed me over something trivial across the encampment and into a snowbank with a single snarled word in High Zeala and a wave of my hand, but that might also have happened two years later, during the first Dorino Campaign. By the time we woke in the morning to find the humans' makeshift barricades unmanned, I was heartily sick of the whole affair. And then we had to cautiously advance into the village, searching for traps or stragglers . . . In the end, I left that part of things to Slash and took myself to the roof of an empty boat shed to brood. 

_Why am I so angry?_ I asked myself. _Did I truly expect them to play along with me to such an extent that I would get all the training I wanted from this one expedition?_ And perhaps on some level I had. I was only thirteen, and for nearly half my life I had been forging myself into a weapon aimed at Lavos. It was understandable that I might find less-than-useful side ventures . . . frustrating. 

I remained perched on that roof until the early afternoon, when Flea came and found me. 

"The town's empty, darling," he said, sitting down beside me. "We found a few traps—nothing big, and no one got hurt, although one of them did squish a dog that the humans left behind. Slash figures we can let the troops have the afternoon to loot and get drunk and generally celebrate." 

"Tell him to make sure that we have enough sober people to stand guard," I said. "The last thing we need is for the humans to turn around, come back, and leave our carcasses rotting on the beach because we were too stupid to keep an eye out for them." 

"He knows," Flea said, then hesitated. "Magus, darling . . . aren't you coming?" 

"Are you suggesting that there's anything in this to celebrate?" I asked. "We won too easily, Flea. It was almost . . . pointless." 

"Oooh, you're just too damned serious for your own good. Have a drink, at least." Flea pulled two open bottles from some hiding place among the folds of his clothing, and handed one to me. I accepted it—it was that or let it fall, roll down the slanting roof, and smash itself on the beach below us. "It's good brandy," Flea added, taking a swig from the bottle he'd kept. "I'll give the humans this: they're good with fermentation." 

I cautiously sniffed the mouth of the bottle he'd given me, then mentally shrugged and took a cautious sip. 

It burned all the way down my throat, and Flea giggled as I started to cough. I glared at him—what had he expected? My experience with alcohol had been limited to beer and watered wine up to that point, and the brandy was pretty damned potent. 

I was tempted to toss the bottle away, but that would have been showing weakness, so I forced myself to take another sip. This time, I was ready for the burn. I took a larger mouthful, and decided that it didn't taste all that bad. 

"It was a pretty wealthy town," Flea said, drinking from his bottle. "Some _fabulous_ cloth at the dry goods merchant's . . . even some jewelry. Here, let me show you." 

It was just like Flea to have done his looting before anyone else had the time, I reflected, absently swallowing more brandy. A tension in my head and along my spine, which had been part of me for so long that I hadn't been consciously aware of it, was slowly easing. I couldn't remember the last time I had felt so relaxed. 

Flea pulled a scrap of cloth out of his sleeve and unfolded it to reveal a jumble of treasure: gold and silver and semi-precious stones, delicate chains and heavy brooches of cast metal. 

"It's all just glitter, of course," he said, "but some of it would be easy enough to enchant, and aren't these earrings just _darling_?" 

I would have described the pair Flea prodded as "gaudy" myself—all those bright pink stones which, while I knew little about jewelry, I was willing to bet had been dyed. 

"Too flashy for my taste," was all I said, and took another pull from my bottle. 

Flea giggled. "Well, of _course_ : pink isn't your colour. Something like _this_ would be more like you." 

He lifted another pair of earrings out of the tangle. These were much plainer: each a thin triangle of gold dangling from an equally thin chain, with no inset gems. 

"Better," I admitted. Raising my bottle again, I was hazily disturbed to find it empty. I gave it a disgusted glare and tossed it over the edge of the roof, then smiled at the musical sound it made as it smashed itself on the rocky ground. 

"Why don't we go find you another one of those, darling?" Flea asked, rolling up his cache of loot and stuffing it back into an invisible pocket. It was a measure of how drunk I already was that I let him pull me to my feet and use the talisman I had made him mere weeks ago to teleport us away. 

The rest of that afternoon and evening is . . . rather hazy in my memory. I definitely remember Flea kissing me as Slash glared daggers at us both—it was the first time anyone had ever kissed me that way—but I can't remember what led up to it, making that moment an island of clarity in a sea of fog. I _think_ I remember playing a rather vicious game of skill with knives, with Slash and several other members of the officer corps as opponents, although I have no idea who won. Laughing uproariously as I blew two flimsy boat sheds to splinters with my magic. Slitting the throat of some random cow that the townspeople had left behind and drinking hot blood directly from the vein. Things like that. 

My next genuinely clear memory, however, involves waking up with my head pillowed on Flea's padded bosom. My mouth tasted like something had died in it, and I had a headache that no amount of concentrated tonic would take away completely: my first experience with a hangover, and it took me all of five minutes to decide that it would be my last as well. 

The headache was probably the reason that I didn't notice for several hours that something had changed during the night: there were small weights dangling from my ears. The distorted reflection in the curved inner surface of a snoring soldier's shield told me that there was something gold hanging there, but I had to remove a glove and investigate by touch to identify the second pair of earrings that Flea had shown me on the roof of the boat shed. 

I never mentioned the matter to him, and I don't know if he remembered doing it. But I did keep them, even after I'd broken away from the Mystics. 

I wonder, sometimes, if that means something. 

* * *

Two years later, I was sitting in a dimly-lit corner of the larger of Dorino's two taverns, nursing a mug of gritty ale and listening to the humans around me talk about . . . me. 

" _—ten feet tall!_ " 

" _—shoots fire from his eyes—_ " 

" _When Magus, the Black God of the Battlefield, appears, darkness falls, even if it's the middle of the day, and the ground shakes. Animals—even trained warhorses—flee in terror as the dead rise up to serve him . . ._ " 

Those were the sorts of stories the Guardian soldiers were telling to any barmaid who would listen. Of course, none of them had any idea that said Black God—I snorted into my ale mug—was sitting in the back corner at a table with a mended leg, wearing the illusory guise of a homely young labourer with red hair and freckles, and turning his head slightly, every now and then, to help his oversized ears tune in on particular conversations. It was mere days before the beginning of the first Dorino Campaign, and I'd come here because I'd been told that officers frequented the place and there was a possibility I might overhear something useful . . . but evidently the officers were staying sober tonight, and all the common soldiers knew was that, in a few days, they would be loaded onto boats and sent off to attack the Mystic Isles en masse. Except that they were never going to make it to the boats. 

"Hey, there, handsome, want some more?" 

I blinked and looked up. It hadn't occurred to me that any of the barmaids would be in the least interested in approaching my obviously impoverished illusory self when there were lonely soldiers in the room, but it only took me one glance to understand why this one was here: she was significantly older than the rest of the serving staff, and her cosmetics did more to emphasize than hide the wrinkles around her mouth and eyes. The soldiers weren't interested in women who were clearly three times my age. 

"I'm fine," I muttered into my mug. I would just finish up the last few swallows and go, I decided. Perhaps tomorrow evening would be more productive. 

"I've never seen you in here before, so you must be new in town. Do you have somewhere to stay tonight?" A hand glided across my shoulders, brushed against the nape of my neck, where my tied-back hair had bared it . . . I was reminded unnervingly of Flea, who had been flirting with me ever since I'd become adult, in the instant before I struck it away. 

"If you're so desperate that you'd bed _me_ for free, I don't want you," I snapped. "You're probably diseased. Or were you going to drug me, then pick my pockets?" 

The woman's face hardened. "And you probably don't even know which hole to stick it in, you ungrateful little brat! Fine, keep your money!" 

She flounced away from my table, dodging little clumps of soldiers and younger, luckier would-be whores. Had she really expected me to . . . ? Just because she had walked up to me and offered? _There are times when I truly do not understand my own species,_ I thought, once more staring into the depths of my dented pewter tankard. Although . . . wasn't that nonsense something that other species did as well? 

Why was there such a strong connection between the urge to reproduce—or at least go through the motions of doing so—and temporary insanity? 

If that seems an unusually clinical way for a fifteen- year-old boy to be thinking of such things, even one with my stubborn focus on revenge . . . well, I suspect that shadow-users in general have low libidos. Getting a child is an act of life, after all. But I found myself wondering, as I watched the soldiers and the women they'd chosen, if I might be missing something important due to my lack of experience. 

And so the next evening, I spun myself a more prosperous illusiory persona—a wide-eyed, innocent-looking one that might have been close to my real age—and instead of returning to the tavern, teleported myself to Truce and sought out the growing city's most exclusive brothel. 

I'm not certain what I was expecting, but what I saw as the poker-faced doorkeeper ushered me inside . . . wasn't it. The building's main room was a comfortable lounge where little knots of people sat talking, drinking, and laughing, and if all the women present were young and attractive, and the ones not attached to men clustered in the better-lit areas . . . well, it was all subtly done. Tastefully, even. 

"Your first time here, young man? You have that look about you, like a rabbit staring a hound in the face." 

The woman who had approached me was older, but unlike the tavern wench from the previous night, she wore that age gracefully. 

I nodded, and made my illusion blush. 

A low chuckle. "Tongue-tied, are you? Well, no matter. We'll just find you someone who knows how to fill in the silences. Hmmm . . . It looks like Annette is free . . ." She caught the eye of a dark-haired girl among the nearest knot of the unattached, and beckoned her over. "This young man is a new visitor, and he's a bit nervous—take good care of him, please, child." 

"Yes, ma'am." 

After that, everything went surprisingly smoothly. It didn't take Annette long to figure out that I wasn't interested in drinks or conversation, so a price was discreetly quoted (I made my illusion blush again at an appropriate moment), coins exchanged hands, and I was led to a room upstairs whose furnishings consisted mostly of a huge bed. With the door shut behind us, Annette took me gently in hand. 

Not quite an hour later, I was sitting in the middle of a tumbled mess of bedding, wondering if what we had just done really was all there was to it. I wasn't about to ask, though, partly because I suspected the answer would be "yes", and that would have left me more confused than ever. The brief explosion of physical pleasure certainly hadn't been worth all the tactile preliminaries—I have never much liked being touched. People paid for _this_? 

_Perhaps it's different if you care about the other person,_ I told myself. I'd heard that claim more than once. However, it wasn't a hypothesis that I was willing to break my emotional isolation in order to test. 

I spelled Annette—if that was even her real name—to sleep, and left Truce the instant I was dressed again. That trip was another thing that I never spoke of to anyone. 

* * *

Time passed. Rumours spread. 

Soon, even the Mystics were calling me "Black God of the Battlefield" behind my back. Ozzie wasn't pleased, but it was clear that he would never succeed in dismissing me from my position, not when the army all but worshipped me. In the end, he abdicated instead, and I would not be at all surprised to find that he breathed a sigh of relief when he did so. Ozzie loved authority, but he had always hated responsibility. I gave him the title of "General" as a sop, although it regrettably put him on an equal footing with Flea and Slash, who were both more loyal and more effective. 

Administration was not, I freely admit, one of my stronger suits. I resented the way the troubles of others kept me from my magical studies. Fortunately, however, a brain- damaged snail would have done a better job of managing things than Ozzie had, so I was considered an improvement. 

It was while I was surveying a possible location for my new castle—I was tired of the rattletrap mess Ozzie considered a defensible keep, and wanted something better-designed—that I met Cyrus for the last time. 

" . . . not looking forward to this." The words floated up at me as I examined the view from the edge of a precipice in the Denadoro Mountains, carried up by some quirk of the action of the winds. 

"Then why have we come all the way up here?" came the reply. 

"Glenn . . ." A sigh. "Because Magus is dangerous— he's proven that. Because this is the first chance we've had to _maybe_ get at him without taking the fight to their islands and probably getting ourselves killed before we get anywhere near him—and, in the process, slaughtering dozens of Mystics whose only sin is listening to their leader. Killing him is the right thing to do, but that doesn't mean I enjoy the idea of doing it." 

"He's just a Mystic." 

"He's a _person_." 

"No, he isn't—he's a . . . a . . ." 

"A _person_ ," Cyrus repeated firmly. "Someone who probably believes as thoroughly in what he's trying to do for the Mystics as I believe in defending Guardia. Under other circumstances, I might even like to meet him and talk things over, but he's shown pretty clearly that he isn't interested in negotiating." 

That would be those two peace envoys whose heads I'd sent back minus their bodies, I mused. Ugly, but it had seemed like the right thing to do at the time. I didn't want peace, not now. 

_Cyrus, you are far too good a man,_ I thought. _Not a flaming hypocrite like me. I suppose it was inevitable that, sooner or later, we would clash._

I'd been carrying the scythe for a couple of years by then, and its haft slid smoothly against the palm of my gloved hand as I pulled it out and turned to face those I knew would be arriving. The Black Wind growled at me, beginning to rise from its slumber, and I sensed . . . _Could that be the Masamune?_

I'd heard of the weapon, heard that Cyrus had left Guardia to seek it, but I'd always considered it a mere legend. _The sword that can cut through any magical barrier._ I'd never expected to face it, so I had to think quickly. 

"Ozzie," I said. "When they get here, your job will be to keep the knight occupied. The sword he carries is potentially dangerous. I'll deal with the little one first, then we can both take care of Sir Cyrus." 

"O-Ozzie's going to have to fight? But—" 

"Your choice . . . but if I have to defeat them both alone, you'll spend the next couple of years in remedial training with the senior cubs." 

Ozzie still had enough supporters that I didn't dare harm him directly, but humiliating him was another matter, and he knew it. He swallowed and took up a fighting stance. 

Cyrus and Glen climbed up the last rope ladder leading to the promontory on which we waited a few moments later. Our two little groups stood in silence for a time, studying each other. Cyrus had filled out a bit and acquired a faint scar that curved along the line of his cheekbone, but otherwise wasn't much changed. Glenn, on the other hand, had shot up like a weed, and his voice had been cracking during their conversation down below. 

I was fairly certain that neither of them recognized me as "Alfador"—after all, the only thing that was still the same was my hair, although I did catch Cyrus studying that closely. 

"So you're Magus," the knight said, breaking the silence at last. 

I bared my teeth. "I didn't think you'd come here to talk, Sir Cyrus. Your reputation _does_ suggest that you're a little soft, but I've yet to find anyone willing to accuse you of cowardice." I spun the scythe in my hands, bringing it up from its grounded position to a diagonal guard. 

Cyrus sighed. "I had hoped . . . but never mind. Let's get this over with." 

He drew the Masamune, and there was an instant vibration in the air. I heard a soft hum, and, to my surprise, traced it to my sister's amulet, resting against my chest. It was resonating with the sword . . . why? 

Cyrus roared a battle cry—"For Guardia!" or something of that ilk—and charged at me. I sidestepped him, spinning, and went at his little friend instead, angling my scythe to hook the green-haired youth's sword and tear it from his hand. 

It worked beautifully—Glenn appeared not to have much experience in fighting unconventional weapons like mine. The boy yelped and staggered back, now unarmed. 

"Beware, Glenn!" Cyrus broke free of the ineffectual Ozzie and interposed himself between me and the younger man, locking the Masamune's guard against the haft of my scythe. We strained against each other in silence for a long moment—I could have broken free at any time by taking a step back, but I was curious to see which of us was the stronger. 

My curiosity proved to be Cyrus' undoing. I still don't know what did it. Perhaps some movement of my head subtly changed the angle at which the light fell on my face, and let him see past the strangeness to familiarity. All I know is that he suddenly froze, mouthing what might have been _Alf?_ , and the Masamune made a soft chiming sound before breaking off a few inches above the hilt. 

Cyrus regained his control almost instantly, punching me in the stomach with the hand holding the broken-off hilt, knocking the air from my lungs and forcing me to fall back with a grunt. 

"Cyrus! The sword . . . The Masamune!" Glenn shouted, urgently but incoherently. 

Ozzie laughed. "Is _that_ the best you can do?! Without your sword, you're nothing!" 

I glared daggers at the green fool. That punch had _not_ been "nothing", but of course, Ozzie hadn't been on the receiving end, so to him, it didn't count. 

Cyrus cast the hilt-shard of the sword aside and drew a pathetic little knife. "You haven't beaten me yet!" 

"C-Cyrus, I—" 

"Glenn, escape while I keep them at bay." 

"B-but—" 

"If you stay, they'll get us both. Go on, Glenn!" 

"Shouldn't you be worrying more about yourself, you soft-hearted fool?" I asked, scythe once more grounded at my side. 

"Glenn, _GO!_ " And Cyrus charged at me with his little knife, a moment of beautiful, suicidal bravery that startled me so much that I had to meet him with a quick spell instead of my weapon. Cyrus screamed as it knocked him back ten feet, almost to the edge of the precipice that dropped toward the waterfall basin. 

"Cyrus!" 

"Run . . . Glenn . . . The Queen. Take . . . care . . . of . . . Leene . . ." 

"Cyruuuuus!" 

Glenn rose from beside his friend's body with raw hatred in his eyes, and glared at me as though he hoped to kill me that way. I smirked at him. 

"What's the matter?" I demanded. "Aren't you going to try your luck?" I glanced deliberately at the hilt shard of the Masamune, which was lying not three feet away from him, where Cyrus had dropped it. Once I'd drawn his attention to it, Glenn's eyes skipped frantically from it to me, and back again. 

Ozzie laughed. "Just like a frog hypnotized by a snake! How about it, Magus? Can't you give him a more fitting form?" 

I kept my gaze on Glenn, but out of the corner of my eye, I was studying Cyrus' crumpled body. I wondered if I was the only one who realized that his chest was still weakly rising and falling, beneath the smoldering pall of his cloak. 

I didn't owe the knight, not exactly, but . . . 

"All right, why not?" I said carelessly. "There's always time for a little fun." And I _had_ been meaning to try that spell out . . . I raised my hand, pointing, and uttered a complex phrase in High Zeala. 

Glenn screamed as his form rippled. He staggered frantically from side to side, as though searching for escape. 

"Idiot," I muttered as he wandered close to the edge of the precipice. Well, the fall was into water, and if I understood correctly how the spell worked, his body was fairly malleable at the moment, so he'd be unlikely to break anything. He'd probably survive, his trailing scream notwithstanding. 

Ozzie laughed as he watched the young man fall. "You spineless wimp!" 

Suddenly, I was very sick of the big green Mage's company. "Go on ahead," I ordered him. "I'll catch up to you. I want to ensure that the Masamune is never reassembled," I added, as he seemed to be about to protest. 

"Oh . . . all right, whatever." The comment was delivered with an undertone of "If you want to stay in this Lavos- forsaken place a little longer, that's fine with me, but I'm going home!" 

I waited until Ozzie had floated off down the ladder and out of sight before I approached Cyrus. A quick water spell doused the smoldering cloak, and I knelt and flipped it back . . . and didn't quite wince. 

"I didn't realize I'd gotten you in the gut," I said out loud, the words stark against the Black Wind's thunder. 

Cyrus laughed weakly. "Somehow, I . . . don't think . . . it would have . . . changed anything . . . if you'd known." 

"No, but I might have followed it up with something quicker and less painful." 

"Don't suppose . . . you'd do that . . . now?" 

My eyebrows rose. "You don't want to wait for Glenn?" 

"Glenn is . . . he'd try to . . . save me. Lingering . . . death." 

"You could still live, you know," I told him, staring down into his eyes. "A good mage could heal even this. I have access to a few." 

"Think . . . your price . . . would be . . . too high," Cyrus gasped out. "Won't turn . . . on Guardia. Not ever. Thank you . . . for letting . . . Glenn live, though." 

My mouth twisted. "A moment of wistful foolishness I may yet live to regret. Even such minor compassion always seems to end up exacting a high price from me." 

"Thank you," Cyrus repeated. He lay there for a moment, just panting. "Guess I . . . won't ever . . . find out what . . . happened to you, Alf. Drive me nuts . . . in the next life . . . but . . . hurts so damned much . . . Do it. Please. Kill me." 

I put my hand on his chest. With that link between us, I could stop his heart with a single word . . . and did. 

"Return in peace to the Sea of Dreams," I murmured in my own language, and gently closed his eyes. 

He'd been a good man, and he'd deserved better than to encounter me. 

I left the hilt-shard of the Masamune where it was, instead taking up and examining the broken blade. To my surprise, it didn't appear to be made of metal, just coated in it, and the raw surface was red with something other than blood. _A sword made of Dreamstone?_ It should have been too brittle to be used as a weapon, and yet my tests showed it to be tough and flexible. 

Then I saw the name written on the broken blade, and understanding dawned. I still didn't understand _how_ the weapon had been created, but if anyone could make such a thing possible, it would have been Melchior. 

How ironic that the first true relic of Zeal that I'd found in this age had been used in an attempt to kill me. 

There was a convenient cave nearby, and I tossed the broken blade inside, hearing it _ping_ off a rock before settling somewhere. That should be sufficient: when Glenn didn't see it out in the open, he'd probably think I'd taken the blade-section with me, or dropped it into the falls. Glancing over the precipice, I saw a giant frog beginning to pick himself up off the ground, and snorted softly before teleporting myself away. 

* * *

After that, matters remained more or less in stasis for the next ten years. The borders between the Realm of the Mystics and the Kingdom of Guardia became well-established, with some skirmishing taking place along them now and again. Slash grew into a formidable military commander, Flea took over my old position as High Mage, and Ozzie took up the administrative slack. 

I continued my magical research, developing an assortment of higher-level shadow spells and learning, in the process, that what had been known about the nature of shadow magic even in Zeal was . . . incomplete. Shadow is not a mere power of death and absence; it is that which underlies the universe, binding time and space together, and it encompasses everything. When I finally grasped that, I became able to use my magic to its full potential, and created the Dark Matter spell. 

With that, I decided that I was ready to face Lavos . . . but on the morning that I was about to begin my preparations, I woke with the Black Wind howling in my ears and knew that something was going horribly wrong. 

Knowing that the most likely source of "something wrong" was Guardia, I went there immediately. I invaded Guardia Castle, slipping cautiously from shadow to shadow . . . and that was where I first saw _him_. 

If it hadn't been for the Black Wind, I might have dismissed the youth with the spiky red hair as unimportant. True, he was a latent lightning-element of some potential, but that very latency meant that his magic was of no value to him _or_ anyone else. Yet the Wind howled around him with a force that I had not encountered since the death of Zeal . . . 

I followed him to the Queen's chambers, and there was witness to an event which initially puzzled me greatly. 

"W-what's happening?! It feels like . . . I'm being torn apart! Help me, Crono! I'm scared!!! Please . . . Crono . . . h- help me!" 

I watched, baffled, as the blonde girl who apparently _wasn't_ Queen Leene, despite their very similar appearances, vanished into thin air. A bass note that I'd never heard before thrummed through the Black Wind's roar as the last trace of her dissipated. Then the Wind quieted a little as the other girl, the one with the odd headgear and the thick glasses, arrived. 

The mini-lecture that followed was little less confusing than the events preceding it, but I did manage to glean some information from it. 

These three youths (although I suppose I was truly not all that much older than they were—it only _felt_ as though I had been an adult ever since falling into this century) were time travellers . . . like myself, in a sense, although it appeared that they came from the future, rather than the past. They were potentially dangerous, since they might easily possess abilities that I did not understand—the bespectacled girl's gear, with that peculiar object dangling at her hip like a weapon, particularly confused me. 

I would have to get rid of them. 

With that on my mind, I followed them back down to the throne room . . . only to discover, when I looked at the Royal Chancellor, that something else was definitely not right. 

The Chancellor possessed the unmistakable aura of a weak, but trained, fire-element, and there was a pulse of shadow magic coming from somewhere among his belongings. He was a Mystic under an illusion spell, not a human. My eyes narrowed. _I never authorized anything like this._ And then, the obvious corollary. _Ozzie, what in hell have you done?_

I whispered a few words in High Zeala, and smiled thinly as the Chancellor jumped—to be expected, since he'd just felt something cold and slimy slithering the length of his spine. Remarkable, how many uses that illusion had. 

The not-human looked shiftily from side to side before saying, "If your Majesty can spare me for a few moments, I must—" 

The king waved his hand. "Go, go." 

I followed the false Chancellor back to his room on the third floor, where he presumably meant to check under his robes for an actual cold and slimy object. However, I didn't give him a chance. The moment he had the door closed, I stepped out of the shadows, stroking the crescent-shaped steel ornament that hung at my hip to call my scythe from the dimensional pocket I kept anchored there. I'd set Schala's amulet into the steel to protect it after a lucky human knight had snapped the chain from which it had once hung, and then found additional uses for the etchable surface of the metal. 

"L-lord Magus!" the false Chancellor hissed. 

"What are you doing here?" I asked sharply. 

"B-buh-wha—" 

I spun the scythe in my hands, bringing it up so that the flat of it was pressed against the underside of his chin, and the outer edge to his throat. My scythe is more like a mutant poleaxe than the common agricultural implement, and it's sharpened on both sides, as my victim soon discovered when he tried to swallow nervously. 

"This little adventure was nothing I authorized," I said. "I need you to tell me whatever plan you're involved in, as you understand it. Now!" 

The answer . . . didn't please me, to say the least. Damn that fool Ozzie and his timing! The last thing I needed right now was to stir up Guardia . . . but what was done was done. Perhaps they would be distracted, at least for a little while, by running around looking for their Queen. I might even be able to take advantage of that distraction by . . . I scowled. 

Regardless of whether things worked out or not, I was still going to hang Ozzie by his thumbs for a week. 

I lowered the scythe and dismissed it back to its normal home in Nowhere with a flick of my wrist. "Continue your mission . . . but from now on, you report to me directly, do you understand?" 

Another nervous swallow. "Yes, Lord Magus." 

I had hoped that that would settle matters, but the next news I received was . . . not what I would have chosen. 

It was late at night when Flea delivered it to me in the room at the highest point of my castle, and I was bleeding. Deliberately, that is, into a bowl. There were parts of the summoning circle that would be most effective if traced in blood, and using the blood of the strongest mage available would improve on that effectiveness. 

"We have a report from Guardia, Magus darling," Flea said from behind me. "Queen Leene has been freed. It . . . has been suggested that a Mystic was involved, although I think that that's most likely a lie." 

"What kind of Mystic?" I asked absently. Deciding that I had enough blood, I pressed a pad of gauze soaked in tonic to my wrist to close the cut. 

"An anthropoid frog. That's why I think the news is false—I've never heard of such a creature, not even among the monsters . . ." 

About to set the bowl on the floor and pick up a brush, I froze in mid-motion. Glenn. Glenn was back. That damned frog, those young time travellers . . . the Black Wind getting louder . . . _How much time do I have left?_

I set down the bowl and rose from my crouched position, turning to face Flea. "The time has come," I told him. "You, Ozzie, and Slash are to lead the assault on Zenan Bridge, while I begin the summoning." 

"Then . . . you're ready . . . _ooooh_ , I can't _wait_ to see the looks on those humans' faces when Lavos mows them down!" That last exclamation was pure Flea. I gave him a wintry smile in return. 

"The summoning will take days," I said. "I need you— all three of you, my loyal Mystic Knights—to buy me the time I will need to complete it. Don't think that it will be easy. The greatest opposition always arrives at the end." 

"I understand, Lord Magus. I'll tell the others." 

"Tell them also that I am not to be disturbed for any cause less than total catastrophe," I said. "If I am forced to break this off in the middle, I will have to begin from the beginning again, and I doubt I will have the time." 

"I understand," Flea repeated, and I crouched down again and picked up my brush, signifying that the audience was at an end. 

I worked quickly but without haste, putting the last crimson touches on the diagram which I had drawn on the floor in molten silver mere days ago. There were two parts to the summoning spell: first, I must find Lavos, and then I must force it to come to me. The circle would preserve the location fix while I worked the second part of the spell. 

Everything else was in readiness: the slow-burning candles that would light the room, the supply of drinking water that I would need to keep myself from collapsing during the ritual—there would be no gap long enough for me to take a meal—and the single, ancient, precious vial of elixir that rested in one pocket of my cape, which would give me the strength to fight Lavos when it responded to my call. 

It was near the end of the seventh day that I heard the door to the ritual room slam open. Light-headed from lack of food and sleep, I forced myself to continue the incantation . . . so close now . . . " _Now the chosen time has come . . . Exchange this world for . . . !_ " 

"Magus!!" 

So damnably close, but my time had run out. 

I don't actually remember more than half of what the frog and I said to each other. I was very tired and trying to support and control the near-finished summoning spell with part of my mind while conversing—and fighting—with the rest. 

If it hadn't been for that, I might have won. If Glenn had come alone, I _would_ have won, regardless of that wretched sword. As it was, they battered me into complete exhaustion with their freed magic—how had _that_ happened?—and I eventually fell to my knees, panting. 

I think I must have said something, but most of my attention was directed inward, wrestling with the structure of the spell, which was now slipping inexorably out of my control. 

I ground my teeth together and fought as the earth rumbled. 

"What the . . . ?!" The blonde girl's voice was the last straw. My mental fingernail-grip on the spell was lost, and I could feel it starting to push _itself_ to completion—now that I was in no condition to fight what it was calling up. I'd had to drink my elixir at the beginning of the fight, and I now had nothing left . . . 

"Bad timing . . . !" I hissed between clenched teeth. "Don't wake up on me now . . . !" My only hope—the world's only hope—was for Lavos to keep dreaming just a little longer, now that I'd opened its way back into this dimension. 

"Wake up? _You're_ the one who _created_ him!" 

"You fools!" I snarled, patience utterly gone. "I only _summoned_ him! He lives in the inner earth, absorbing the land's power and growing ever stronger!" 

And where, I wondered with the sudden crystal clarity I always found at the depth of my worst anger, had these fools even heard of Lavos? How had they known what I meant to summon? Had Ozzie babbled it, or— 

"What?!" 

In the wake of the blonde girl's single-word exclamation, I felt time and space start to distort and mouthed a curse in High Zeala. 

Lavos wasn't asleep after all. 

"You!" I snarled across the inane babble of the red- haired boy and his companions. Couldn't they even tell that there was more than one Gate here? "If you hadn't shown up . . . !" 

Then the Gate took me, shook me around as I remembered from my childhood experience with Lavos, and flung me out onto packed dirt. 

I lay there for a moment, panting. Cold . . . it was bitterly cold . . . The Black Wind was howling around me; outside the cave, a more ordinary, physical wind was doing the same. 

I desperately wanted to sleep, but at the same time, I knew it wasn't safe to do so—the Black Wind might be heralding my _own_ death. I staggered to my feet and went outside. 

Snow. Snow as far as the eye could see. Something about the terrain looked vaguely familiar, but I couldn't place it. 

And then . . . 

A flash of light drew my gaze upward to where huge shadows were moving against the sky, above the clouds. Then another flash, a column of light that was there, then gone . . . 

"The Skyway," I whispered aloud. 

This was the era of Zeal. 

I was home. 

It was, I reflected, an irony altogether too bitter for laughter. Home, finally, after so long . . . after so much change and so much pain that there was no way I could ever fit in here again. Murderer . . . cannibal . . . monster. If I met Schala now, I would never dare reveal myself to her. My sweet sister should have no contact with a creature who had let oceans of blood. 

Schala . . . 

If this was Zeal, then Schala was alive . . . or perhaps not yet born, but it mattered little. What was important was . . . it hadn't happened yet. And now it didn't have to. 

For almost twenty years, I had worked to forge myself into a weapon that could destroy Lavos. I hadn't expected to have the chance to do it _here_ , to negate everything that had brought my present self into being, but oh, if I could . . . 

If I could, Schala would live. I could save her, and Zeal. Even Alfador and my mother . . . they would never know what peril had brushed so close to them. And if in destroying Lavos, I also negated my own existence . . . Well, then, so be it. Once my enemy was dead, my life would have no value. Perhaps I would even be replaced by another Janus Zeal: a different, less damaged person. 

I squared my shoulders and left the cave, walking in the direction of the Skyway, while the Black Wind taunted me, its wordless voice calling me a liar. 

I refused to listen.


	2. II. At the Bottom of Night

Fortunately, the Skyways had never been guarded. Any Enlightened One might use them at will, and their magical nature meant that the Earthbound _couldn't_ use them without an Enlightened One's aid. So I simply chose a time when no travellers were present, pulled my hood up, and walked onto the pattern marking the active point as though I had every right in the world to be there. 

It was always summer on the floating islands of my homeland. The warmth made it safe enough to find a half- hidden spot between a bush and the Skyway's back wall, wrap up in my cloak, and sleep. 

When I awoke, I was hungry but clear-headed, and my magic had recovered from the dual strain of summons and fight. Hungry . . . that was going to be a nuisance. Normal food wouldn't poison me, but I knew from experience that the longer I tried to subsist on a typical human diet, the more I would crave raw meat. And my ability to mime a normal human might mean the difference between survival and execution here. I was going to have to wear my hood constantly—illusion spells would be noticed by the Enlightened, and if anyone got a good look at my real face, I was at the very least going to have some explaining to do. 

Now I needed to find out when I was. The Black Wind might be Lavos' herald . . . or it might speak of some earlier disaster. Nor could I remember enough to be able to tell whether the other energy I now sensed blanketing the area like a film of rancid grease belonged to the Sun Stone or the Mammon Machine, although the way my mind shied away from it suggested the latter. But an emotional reaction was not certainty, and I needed to be certain. 

"Keep moving, you slugs! We've got quite a bit of work to do today!" 

Dalton's voice startled me sufficiently that my hand was halfway to pulling out my scythe before I forced myself to lower it, twitching, to my side. The fool had no reason to come around to the back of the Skyway. Even my aura wasn't going to give me away—he'd never trained his magic enough to perceive them. And his presence at least narrowed the timeframe a little, since Dalton had been thirty-seven when Zeal fell. 

"Yes, sir! But . . ." 

"What is it, fool?" 

"How many Earthbound do we need to bring back, sir?" 

My eyes narrowed. Only once, to my knowledge, had the military gone out hunting Earthbound to bring back to Zeal proper, and that was when slaves had been needed to complete the work on the Ocean Palace. 

This _was_ the prelude to the Fall, then. 

"Her Majesty said she wants at least thirty—there's a lot of fine-work to be done. Not that that's any of your business." 

Thirty! This was the very first . . . recruitment drive . . . for the Ocean Palace Project, then—later trips had only brought back a few replacements. 

"I need to get to the Ocean Palace," I murmured aloud, only realizing after I'd said it that I'd spoken in the language of the sixth century AD. I was going to have to be careful about that. This was a world of only one language, although it was one in the process of fracturing into different dialects for the Enlightened and the Earthbound. 

But the Ocean Palace . . . Access to it was restricted. It had never been opened to the public. I knew where the Skyway leading to it was, but sneaking through there was a trick that would work only once, and once I was inside, there would be no place I could hide—with my aura, no one would ever take me for an Earthbound. 

Only the Queen could grant me permission to come and go at will. Which meant that I needed to convince her that I would be an asset. My magic alone wouldn't be enough—indeed, my style of casting would be considered primitive here, since I relied on my own energies rather than those projected by the Mammon Machine. In Zeal, pure elemental magic was considered something that only children who hadn't honed their skills enough to draw on outside forces used. Even my being a shadow-element was unlikely to be enough of a novelty to draw much attention at court. 

I could, I thought with a certain amount of black humour, assassinate Dalton and then volunteer to take his place in the thankless job of Head of Security, but no one would ever believe that a mage of my caliber actually _wanted_ such a role. It would generate suspicion. 

In the end, I had few assets that would distinguish me from any random inhabitant of the floating islands. Determination, yes, I had that, but it alone wouldn't get me anywhere. My magic . . . valuable, but not valuable enough. My knowledge of the future . . . 

That did give me the germ of an idea. However, I was going to have to hurry to the Palace in order to make it come to fruition. 

Of course, I did have the advantage of not needing to use the Skyways, now that I was recovered . . . Flying from one floating island to another cut a long leg out of my journey, and I didn't particularly care if I was spotted—testing new magics was not only not illegal in Zeal, it was encouraged. 

I landed on the front lawn of the Palace, not far from a trio of Nu, and strode inside. The doors to the throne room were open, and several more Nu stood about, offering directions to anyone who asked. Today was the Queen's monthly public audience, during which she was supposed to be open to the concerns of all her subjects, and many people had come from Kajar or even Enhasa to see her. 

I made straight for the Throne Room, ignoring the lingering stares I received from both visitors and residents—my aura at work again, no doubt. No one tried to stop me, however, which was . . . fortunate. Determined as I was on my goal, I can't say what I would have done if anyone had interfered. 

Once inside the Throne Room, however, I didn't try to push close to the throne, instead lingering near the doors, watching and listening as my mother went through the motions required of her by the audience, clearly bored to tears. 

Initially, she and Melchior, Guru of Life, were alone at the front of the room, but a few moments after my arrival, someone else came through the concealed door behind the throne, as my slightly blurred memories of this day had told me would happen. 

_Schala._

My hands clenched into fists as I saw my sister, whole and unharmed, walk around the throne to stand on the side opposite Melchior. 

_She looks just as I remember her . . ._ but then, she would. Here, no time had passed . . . except in reverse, which became more clearly apparent when a second, smaller figure emerged and took his place in Schala's shadow. 

I stared at my younger self with some bemusement. My aura, as a child, had indeed consisted of painfully dark and bright spikes . . . although the effect was no more truly visible than the Black Wind was truly audible. In this time and place, it was underdeveloped, clinging closely to my younger self's body. Schala's aura was a misty, beautiful thing that glowed with rich power. In my opinion, it entirely suited her. My mother's aura, by contrast, was old and tired and sometimes flickered alarmingly. 

"Mother, please tell me that you did not truly send Dalton to Algetty to _enslave_ the Earthbound!" 

My memory of this conversation, of course, had me standing at the front of the room, and from back here, I was able to observe some interesting nuances that had eluded me before, such as the fact that Schala's exclamation made Melchior look startled, then sour, as though he'd bitten into a lemon. 

"We've been through this, Schala. We need additional help to ensure the timely completion of the Ocean Palace—" 

"There are better ways to obtain that than by enslaving our cousins," my sister replied firmly. "If Dalton forces thirty Earthborn from their homes, families will be torn apart—" 

Pitching my voice to carry, I interrupted crisply, "Actually, he'll take thirty-one—although if it's any compensation to you, Princess, he'll lose four Lashers in the process. The Earthborn are not wholly defenseless." 

"Who said that?" the Queen snapped. 

People were already moving as far from me as they could, not wanting to get caught up in the Queen's displeasure. I hastened the process by stepping to the side, placing myself in the clear aisle between the throne and the doors. 

"You are the first spy We have ever met who reveals himself so openly," my mother said, reverting to royal formality now that she was no longer speaking to her daughter. 

The corner of my mouth curled up in bleak amusement. "And what are you suggesting that I might be spying on, your Majesty? Your servant hasn't even reached Algetty yet—if you'll recall the time of his departure, you will see that his journey will require another hour or so. Certainly he has not led his men against the Earthbound yet." 

"A would-be prophet, then," the Queen said scornfully. 

I simply shrugged. "It is for your Majesty to judge the value of my words. When they prove true, send someone to find me—I will be nearby." 

It would have been impossible to make a decently dramatic exit on foot from such a crowded room, so I teleported myself to the back gardens of the Palace, an action which I hoped would provide drama enough to satisfy anyone. Teleportation fell into one of the few classes of spells that the Mystics had developed to a greater extent than Zeal, and my abilities in that field surpassed those of even the best-trained Mystics. 

All in all, I'd performed a fine little piece of stagecraft. Fortunate that I'd remembered the results of Dalton's little expedition, but then it would be the talk of the Palace for days. It was going to take more than theatre to impress my mother, however—despite the way I knew Lavos' corruption to be working on her mind, she was intelligent enough, and experienced enough in politics, to detect an act empty of substance. I needed to— 

"Young man!" I didn't realize that Melchior was addressing me until I felt a tug on my cape. 

I snatched the fabric from his hand. "Don't touch me," I snapped. 

The Guru's eyebrows rose visibly, behind his glasses. "As you wish. Young man, I wish to speak to you." 

"I was under the impression that you already were." 

Those eyebrows remained suspended. "I hope you don't intend to behave this way around Her Majesty—she takes a dim view of insolence." 

"It hasn't yet been decided whether or not I will be 'around' her at all," I pointed out. "Do you have a reason for being here, or do you just find it amusing to bait stray wanderers?" 

The old man smiled, as though I'd said something tremendously enlightening instead of asking him a rather sharp question. "The rest of the court is busy arguing about who you are and where you come from, but I thought I would come straight to the source." Then the smile vanished. "To my knowledge, there should be no shadow-user alive in Zeal today who is possessed of a gift as impressive as yours. You conceal your face, but your hair is of a colour peculiar to the Queen's family . . . and yet, she has no brothers or male cousins, her son is a mere child, and her father is long dead and was not a shadow-element." 

That he would notice such a trivial detail as the last inch or so of my hair, where it hung below the lower edge of my hood at the back . . . 

"Stop fishing, old man," I said brusquely. "I came here from a place outside of Zeal's boundaries. It would be logical to assume that the colour of my hair is a coincidence and that I hide my face due to some sort of disfigurement, would it not? Or perhaps I'm a construct that has been sent here for the sole purpose of confusing everyone while Lord Dalton engineers a palace coup," I added, with an ironic smile that he probably wouldn't see. 

"Dalton, engineer a—" Melchior sputtered, then started to laugh. "I admit, that's the best joke I've heard in days! Although you seem to know a great deal about the personalities and dealings of those at court for such a new arrival, sir Prophet." 

"For a true prophet, that would be inevitable . . . Sir Melchior," I pointed out, although inside, I was more disturbed than I had been in a long time. Damnable old man . . . ! 

I was going to have to get rid of the Gurus somehow, I realized with that familiar cold clarity. They were just too quick-witted, Melchior especially. Sooner or later, one of them was going to realize that there was something odd going on. 

"You're quite sharp, aren't you?" the old man was saying. "Very well, keep your mystery. For now." 

My mind was racing as he walked away, flipping over alternatives. Gaspar and Belthasar were distractable, but I was going to have to do something permanent to Melchior. If I didn't, his involvement with the Mammon Machine meant that he was going to be constantly underfoot even if he fell out of favour. 

Framing him for the palace coup I'd jokingly suggested would have been perfect irony, but also far too much work. I needed something simpler. 

I began to walk aimlessly as I thought, my boots crunching on the gravel of the garden paths. The Queen's attention, at the moment, was focussed on the Ocean Palace and the Mammon Machine. So the greatest crimes, to her mind, would be crimes against those things—in short, sabotage. The difficult part was going to be linking it to Melchior in a way that was obvious but not _too_ obvious. The old man wasn't stupid, so having him appear to do something foolish would have been . . . out of character. 

The wind suddenly grasped at my cloak, and I had to grab the edge of my hood to keep it from flying back and revealing my appearance to the world. My wanderings had brought me to the very back of the gardens . . . and there, beyond a low wall, was the edge of Zeal itself, the precipitous drop where the floating island came to an end. As little Prince Janus, I'd come to stand here often, staring out over the horizon, and then my nurse would scold me when I returned to my room with my hair tangled by the gale. I'd almost forgotten . . . 

"Prophet!" 

I turned to face the Nu which had just come up behind me. 

"Lord Dalton has just reported in from the surface," the creature explained. "The Queen wishes to see you immediately." 

I favoured it with a bitter smile. 

_And so it begins._

* * *

My mother's court was a court divided, as my blurry childhood memories had suggested. However, the division involved was worse than I had been aware of back then. The Queen's followers, with her encouragement, reacted to any criticism of her actions as though it were direst treason. Opposing them were what I might describe as the Gurus' Faction, although Melchior, Gaspar, and Belthasar weren't so much its leaders as the examples it followed. It urged caution and moderation, regardless of the Queen's wishes. 

As an apparent outsider, I was naturally regarded with suspicion by both sides. Letting me get the Queen's ear was one of the few things that they were willing to work together to prevent. Not that they could stop her from summoning me if she wanted to do so, but Dalton especially made certain that I could never speak to her without a dozen people listening in. 

Little did he know that that suited me just fine. I didn't have time to slowly ingratiate myself with my mother. I needed to have access to the Ocean Palace before the Mammon Machine was transferred there, and that meant that I was going to have to do something spectacular, public, and deserving of reward. And so I cautiously flattered the Queen while at the same time doing my best not to seem too sycophantic, and planned. 

Late one night, I broke into Melchior's laboratory and helped myself to some of the prototype devices he kept there. They had the stamp of his magic all over them . . . and nothing in the way of instructions for other users, but I-as-Janus had been watching solemnly from a corner as he'd tested them, and I thought I knew how to operate them. 

The most difficult part of the whole business was sneaking into the hall of the Mammon Machine. In any other time period, all I would have had to do was blend with the shadows and walk past the guards that replaced the Nu at night, but here in Zeal, someone with my aura . . . Well, I might as well have been trailing a marching band along behind me, and even if the guards were little more than a formality, I still couldn't afford to be noticed. In the end, I had to resort to a Sleep spell, and then get in and out _fast_ before anyone woke up. I'd planned the whole sequence carefully, but the skin between my shoulderblades still prickled as I concealed the bulk of my device inside the Mammon Machine, and then set up the trigger near the door. I was sweating by the time I was able to teleport myself away . . . and there was one more thing that I had to do afterwards, too. 

The next day, I attached myself to the tail of the Queen's entourage as she moved about the Palace. I wasn't very happy, because I knew I was pushing things forward faster than was truly safe, but deep inside I knew that I was still racing against time. Those young time travellers and that stupid frog . . . if they were hunting Lavos, they would be drawn here, to this pivotal event in the evil's history, sooner or later. 

I was getting so damnably tired of being rushed along by events . . . 

I halted my mother just outside the Mammon Machine's room. "My Queen! Please do not step through that door! If you do—" 

"Predicting disaster, sir Prophet?" my mother asked sweetly. Then her smile faded. "You overstep yourself. We go where We will." 

I bowed and stepped back. "I did not intend for it to seem as though I were giving you orders, your Majesty. I merely meant—" 

I smiled thinly as I was waved away. I had been counting on things happening in precisely that way—in fact, I could very nearly have scripted the dialogue. 

There are those who may consider my manipulation of my mother more than usually cold-blooded, even for me . . . but the truth is, I saw very little of that woman as a child. It was Schala who was my mother in all but the physical sense. My sister was the one who explained the workings of the world to me, who comforted me in the night . . . 

That isn't to say, of course, that the way I turned out in the end was at all Schala's fault. For that, I am to blame . . . and Lavos. 

In any case, there was a soft sighing sound as the Queen passed through the doorway, and then a small explosion. Wild lightning crackled about the room . . . and the ground shook as power began to fade from the massive levitation spell that held the floating islands in the sky. 

I'd been expecting that and calculated that the sheer inertia of the spell would give me a minute or two in which to act before we all went into free-fall. Risky, but I'd felt it was necessary. After everything I'd done, being the catalyst for the Fall of Zeal would have been . . . embarrassing, but cosmetic damage to the Mammon Machine wouldn't have been enough to accomplish my task: I had to make my mother see Melchior as a real threat. 

I teleported past my mother and into the room, and shot forward to grab the flailing ends of the cable that my explosion had detached, carefully chosen from the Machine's blueprints, which were still on display in Melchior's lab. They were uncomfortably hot even through my gloves as I brought them together. 

The reconnection re-established the flow of energy through the Machine and into the islands' levitation spell. I had to hold the cable until one of the Nu came forward to splice it. When I was finally able to drop it, I winced and carefully held my hands open at my sides. My palms had taken damage even through the tough leather covering them—something which I hadn't anticipated. I didn't think it was serious, but I would have to wait until I was alone to check on it. 

"Very interesting, Prophet," my mother said from near the door. "I wouldn't have taken you for a man of action." 

I bowed. "Your Majesty is too kind. I only did what needed to be done to save us all." 

"Indeed." Although her next words weren't addressed to me, her eyes lingered on me as she spoke. "Dalton. I want to know how this happened. Have a report for me by the end of today." 

"Of course, your Majesty." Dalton glared at me out of his one eye, no doubt worried that the Queen's sudden interest in me would mean my being promoted over his head, with a corresponding loss of power and privilege for him. I stood silently, depending on my hood to hide my expression. 

I was going to have to _rely_ on Dalton to complete my frame for Melchior, sad to say. Intervening in the investigation would have been too much and I knew it. Fortunately, the fool had some competent technicians working under him—all he _should_ have to do was make the report at the end. 

"Very well, I'll leave you to it. Prophet, come with me." 

I had no choice but to follow my mother back to the Throne Room, and spend several hours standing in the place Melchior had occupied the day before, playing the advisor, dancing along the narrow line between flattery and sycophancy once again while the damaged skin of my palms burned under my gloves. 

I couldn't refuse the invitation to dine at the royal table that night, either, although I couldn't bring myself to do more than pick at the food. While the diet of the Enlightened Ones wasn't _officially_ vegetarian, meat was considered a food that only animals and Earthbound ate in any quantity, and what little of it was present was well-cooked, which meant that it might as well have been ashes as far as I was concerned. And eating is difficult when your hands hurt—well, unless someone feeds you, which wasn't an option for me under the circumstances even if I'd dared admit the problem existed. 

Throughout the meal, I could feel eyes on me— Schala's and Janus', mostly. The boy was openly hostile, as I would have expected if I'd been able to take the time to consider how I would have reacted to my current self at that age, but my sister's gaze was . . . less fathomable. 

Dalton's report arrived after supper, when we were back in the Throne Room again. Or should I say that Dalton, his report and his suspect arrived all together? 

"Let me _go_ , you long-haired behemoth!" 

Dalton did just that, dropping Melchior on the ground in front of the throne. The Queen raised her eyebrows and waited. 

"All the evidence leads back to him," the one-eyed man said gruffly. "It didn't even take us very long to figure that out." 

"I tell you," the Guru snapped from his uncomfortable position on the floor, "it's a frame. F-R-A-M-E. I would never sabotage my own work." 

"Ha! Sorry, old man, but we already found that Nu. Smart of you to use one of Belthasar's instead of your own, but your signature was all over the erasure." 

Only inwardly did I dare sigh with relief. Setting up the physical evidence that a Nu had performed the sabotage, wiping the chosen Nu's memory with one of Melchior's devices, then returning the device carefully to his laboratory . . . those had been the last and most delicate of the previous night's tasks, not helped by the fact that I'd only seen the prototype Nu programmer in use once. 

"My signa—That's impossible!" 

"My technicians say that yours was the only magic detectable on the damaged parts of the machine. The Nu bore your signature and Belthasar's." 

The Queen's fingers tapped against the arm of her throne. "It may be a conspiracy. Have Belthasar and Gaspar watched. As for you—" 

"My Queen, please!" 

" _Do not interrupt Us, Melchior!_ " That order, loudly given, seemed to hold a hint of Lavos' roar in it. "As for you, you will spend the near future in an ice prison at the top of the Mountain of Woe. We will decide on your final disposition after the Ocean Palace is complete. Dalton, see to it." 

"As you will, my Queen." Dalton, always the ready sycophant, bowed deeply before grabbing Melchior by the collar again and dragging him out. 

"And what do you think, Prophet?" my mother asked once the doors had closed behind them again. 

"The future is cloudy, my Queen, but I believe you may be correct about the conspiracy. I see others who may seek to interfere with your plans—a young man with red hair, a frog- creature that walks on two legs and wields a sword like a man—" 

"A frog-man?" My mother laughed. "What a bizarre idea! Are you certain that your visions aren't coming from the bottom of a wine bottle?" 

I shook my head, miming puzzlement. "I can make no more sense of it than you, my Queen. The creature is not a construct, nor is it like anything else I have ever seen." Indeed, Glenn, as I had remade him, was . . . unique. "But I am certain of this: they are coming, and they will be trouble. We must not allow them near the Mammon Machine. Still less must they be permitted to enter the Ocean Palace." 

"Hmph. Well, you have proven your ability twice now, and risked your neck for the sake of this kingdom. Since you are so worried about the Ocean Palace, I believe I shall put you in charge of the remainder of its construction, so that Dalton can concentrate on his security duties." 

I bowed. "You do me too great an honour, my Queen." 

"That remains to be seen. Go find your bed for the night—I assume that even prophets need to sleep." 

The room I had been assigned was a small one at the back of the palace, barely large enough to contain a bed, a wardrobe, and a single chair—clearly a discard from some other part of the palace, since one leg had been broken and then sloppily mended, leaving it a little shorter than the others. Rather than feel the rickety thing wobble underneath me, I sat down on the edge of the bed to pull off my scorch-marked gloves. 

The burns were . . . not too bad, really, although the redness looked terrible against the pallor of my skin. More of a sunburn than anything else, although there were a few small blisters above and below the band of callus I'd developed over the hours of practicing with my scythe. A tonic and a good night's rest should take care of it. 

"So you did burn yourself. When I heard what had happened, I wondered." 

I blinked, looking up at the person now standing in my doorway. "Princess. Is it wise for you to be here, so late at night?" 

It was difficult, I discovered, to speak to her gently, even though she was the one person in the world to whom I wished to do no harm. But I had spent so many years cultivating a cold, curt, conniving persona that I had almost forgotten how to be anything else. Still, looking at her, I felt a fluttering of . . . something . . . deep inside the frozen and parched thing I had made of my soul. A hint of a kind of pain that verged on pleasure. 

Schala smiled. "I hardly think you're going to attack me with your hands in that state, Prophet." She hesitated. "Do you have a name?" 

I shrugged. "I gave it up a long time ago." "Magus" would sound too pretentious to an Enlightened, and I didn't dare call myself "Janus" . . . but I felt a tiny stab of shame at the lie. 

To dispel what was becoming an awkward silence, I fumbled through the pockets lining my cloak until I found a vial of tonic, and then mouthed a curse when my first attempt to open it ended in failure. My burned hands just wouldn't grip the glass tightly enough. 

I was trying to decide between magicking the stopper loose, which, in my current state, might shatter the vial, and seeing if I could pull it out with my teeth, when a slender hand plucked it from my grasp. 

"Allow me," Schala said. So typical of her, of her compassion. I had almost forgotten . . . "Here, hold out your hands." 

Mutely, I obeyed, and she began to massage the thick green liquid from the vial into the reddened skin. Her touch strengthened that fluttering inside me. It was as though a part of myself that I had long abandoned was stirring agonizingly back to life. _I want . . . I . . ._ But at some point during the years of darkness, I had lost the words I needed to describe what was happening inside me. 

Schala blinked when she first worked her way out to my fingertips. 

"You don't have any nails! How—" 

"An accident a very long time ago," I said. "Does it truly matter?" 

"Well, for a moment I thought . . . but constructs don't callus, even the ones like the Lashers that are supposed to look human. You puzzle me, you know." 

I shrugged. 

"No, truly, you do. I . . ." Then the words came out in a rush. "I shouldn't trust you. You hide your face, you play on my mother's paranoia, you did nothing to save Melchior, your aura is terrifying—all shadow and rage . . . and yet I somehow can't bring myself to be angry or afraid. There's something about you that makes me want to believe in you." 

"Princess . . . I wish I could tell you that your trust was not misplaced," I said, staring at where she was still working on my hands. The redness was almost gone now. "There is more at stake here than you realize." That internal fluttering was growing stronger as I spoke to her—magnificent agony. "I don't want to see you hurt, but if I must, if you get in the way of my purpose, then—" _Then . . . I don't know! I don't—if she bars me from Lavos—_

My train of thought was interrupted by the unexpected sensation of something pressing against my elbow. 

" _Mra?_ " The lavender-grey head butted against me again. 

"Alfador, what are you doing in here?" Schala had paused in mid-motion and was staring at the unexpected visitor. 

"Alfador? Is that his name?" Hopefully she wouldn't notice the tightness in my voice. _Alfador . . . so you know me even now, in this guise._

"Yes. He's my brother's cat. Strange to see him here—he usually doesn't take to people . . ." 

Alfador had evidently figured out that I didn't have a free hand just then and ducked under my bent arm, using it to stroke his back. Climbing into my lap, he kneaded at my thighs for a moment, then curled up, settled down, and, as far as I could tell, went to sleep. 

Schala laughed. "I hope whatever self-cleaning spells you have on your clothes are up to dealing with cat hair." 

"I think they'll suffice," I said, then froze as I heard shuffling footsteps outside in the hallway. 

"Schala . . . ?" A small figure stood in the doorway, rubbing his eyes. 

"Go back to bed, Janus," my sister said. 

"I was looking for Alfador, and—" The boy froze in place, staring. "Why is he with _you_?!" he asked angrily. 

"You'd have to ask him that," I said. 

My younger self's eyes narrowed. "You're going to fail, you know. The Black Wind moves about you like a cyclone." 

I shook my head. "What you hear isn't my failure," I said. "My death, perhaps, but not my failure, for I _will not_ fail." A gentle push woke the cat and sent him leaping down off my lap. "I thank you for your assistance, Princess Schala, but perhaps you had best escort your brother back to his room. Good night." 

"Good night, Prophet." 

"Can you hear it too?" 

I ignored the boy's question, and was treated to a series of lingering, over-the-shoulder stares from each of them in turn until I got up and shut the door. I made quick use of the rest of the tonic, kicked my boots off, and curled up on the bed. 

Schala . . . The pain inside me was knife-sharp now. I yearned to reach out to her—ached with the need to hold her in my arms, to keep her safe, but the only way to truly save her was to risk everything, because Lavos . . . Lavos wanted her too. 

On that day long ago, just before I had fallen into time, I had been able to sense that _thing_ reaching out to her, searching for a focus for its power as it fought its way back to conscious awareness, and finding my sister—the most powerful mage in Zeal, then, since I had still been untrained and largely ignorant of my abilities. And she had been the Arbiter, linked to the Frozen Flame that the Gurus had discovered to be a fragment of Lavos and able to act as a channel for its power. The creature had known the shape of her magic well, and given the least opportunity, I knew it would seek her out again. 

If I wanted to save her, there was no way that I could spare her. If Schala was to have any kind of future, Lavos must be destroyed. That meant playing through this farce right to the end, until my enemy appeared before me. 

I would have to use Schala in the same way as I did everyone else around me. I was going to need every ounce of cold rage in me to finish this. I couldn't afford to let myself feel anything but the hate . . . and so I drew it around myself like an icy cloak, smothering that painful little hint of warmth that my sister's concern had woken inside me. 

If I lived through this, then there would be time, and if not . . . I truly did not care what she thought of me, so long as she was safe. 

* * *

I visited the Ocean Palace for the first time the next day. The Skyway down from the palace proper took me to an arrival platform isolated in a room large enough to be impressive but small enough to be defensible. That portion of the design, I approved of. The style of the building's interior furnishings didn't much appeal to me, however. Bad memories, I suppose. And those gaps in the floor with lava showing through disgusted me. Ostentatious displays of power like creating controlled openings down into the planet's core are best presented sparingly. Including them in the architecture of this building would only cause familiarity to create contempt among the very people all this was supposed to impress. 

I was even less impressed by the room beyond the vestibule. Was there supposed to be some sort of point to this peculiar labyrinth of islands and walkways? Not security, not with some of the gaps between bits of floor so narrow that a long-legged man could conceivably straddle them. Was it perhaps meant to give headaches to visitors who tried to see a pattern in the design? 

A couple of the captured Earthbound were working here, polishing a statue at the far end of the room. A Lasher stood nearby. From time to time, he would idly flick his whip in the direction of the slaves, making them jump. 

I frowned as I got closer and was able to see the trio more clearly. The two Earthbound had stripped down to the loincloths they wore under their rough outer garments, and were sweating profusely despite the spells that should have kept the heat from the lava under control. The taller of the two men had a pale, set expression that I didn't like, and fell to one knee as I watched. 

The other man broke off to crouch beside him. "Hey, Lor, are you okay? Lor!" 

The taller man was down on all fours now. With a despairing expression on his face, he vomited into the lava, sending up a cloud of foul-smelling smoke. 

The Lasher flicked his whip, and this time the tip of it bit flesh on the shoulder of the healthy man. "Back to work, you!" 

" _Stop,_ " I commanded, and the Lasher's head jerked in my direction. 

"You're—" 

"I am in charge here now, yes. Have that Earthbound take his friend to somewhere he can rest, and give him water. Then he can return here to finish his work. In future, any worker whose job keeps him in close proximity to the lava is to be given water on an hourly basis, understood?" 

"Coddling these vermin? You're soft, Prophet." The voice that spoke from behind me was not that of a Lasher. 

I turned, slowly, to face Dalton. "I am trying to get this place completed as quickly as possible," I said flatly. "Killing the slaves will slow matters. They'll work faster and more effectively if they think they have some chance of surviving to return home." 

Dalton sneered. "And who's to say that the Queen would release them?" 

"Why would she want to keep them?" I asked. "They're little more than animals. Feeding them is expensive, and killing them directly would be no more interesting than working alongside constructs in a slaughterhouse." 

"Her Majesty might disagree with that." 

I shrugged. "A legitimate difference of opinion. I kill as necessary, when it is the most effective way of removing an obstacle from my path, but I take no particular pleasure in it. However, when someone does get in my way, he generally doesn't remain there for long." 

Dalton stiffened. "Are you threatening me?" 

It was unlikely that he could see me bare my fangs in a smile, with my face shadowed by my hood, so I tried to inject amusement into my voice as I spoke. "If I intended to kill you, do you think I would bother warning you in advance and giving you a chance to escape? No, Sir Dalton, you are safe from me. For the moment. Now, what are you doing down here? Her Majesty removed you from this project." 

"I just wanted to get some stuff I left behind." 

"I'll escort you, then," I said blandly. "Just to make sure you don't get . . . confused . . . about what's your property and what belongs to the throne." 

Dalton's expression spoke volumes, but even he was bright enough to know that he couldn't stop me from coming with him without also starting a fight, which would have been foolish with three witnesses present. And so I fell in beside the blonde man as he walked past me, and followed him down into progressively more unfinished areas of the Ocean Palace. It seemed that Dalton's strategy for finishing the interior had been to see each area through to completion before moving on to the next. I couldn't help but consider that inefficient. 

We were at the top of the great elevator shaft, waiting for the platform to rise up from below, when something came flying at me unexpectedly from a shadowy corner of the room. Startled, I flung a Dark Bomb at it and caused it to explode messily into pieces. 

Dalton smirked at me and poked at a very large eyeball with the toe of one boot. "Better be careful," he said. "We've been having problems with some of the constructs down here suffering spontaneous corruption of their programming— Scouters, mostly. Stupid things don't seem to like being so far from the sun." 

That made me scan the rest of the shadowed corners suspiciously for movement or auras—foolish of me, really, but the last thing I expected was for Dalton to make a grab for the back of my hood and yank it down. 

"Better make sure that your own programming doesn't suffer as w— _Oof!_ " Dalton doubled over as my boot hit the pit of his stomach with considerable force. 

I followed it up by slamming him back against the nearest wall. A spell scrabbled at me but failed to find purchase as I smiled, fangs bare, at the blonde man. "So sorry to disappoint you, but I'm quite human . . . or I was. Massive amounts of shadow energy are not kind to the body. I wonder what prolonged exposure to such would do to you . . . ?" 

For a moment, Dalton's face rivaled mine for pallor. "You wouldn't dare." 

"Wouldn't I?" I asked softly. "I wouldn't consider it any more foolish than, say, returning to the queen with her husband's body in tow and claiming to be the sole survivor of the monster attack that felled him." 

I'd been quite young when my father had died, of course, but that much was part of the official record: King Marus had gone to Algetty for an unspecified purpose, with Dalton and several assorted Lashers and Mages as an escort, but only Dalton had come back, newly one-eyed and carrying the king's body, claiming that the party had been ambushed and destroyed by monsters. Rumours will inevitably spring up around any series of events like that, but I had never believed any of them . . . not until that day in the Ocean Palace, when I saw Dalton's remaining eye widen and his face distort with fear. Clearly there was something odd about that bit of ancient history . . . but what? Dalton couldn't have been my father's killer. He lacked both the power and the intelligence. 

"You can't possibly prove anything," he said. 

I stroked his face, insultingly pointing up the fact that he was still helpless in my grip. "Stay out of my way and you'll never need to know," I told him. Then I let go, stepped back, and let him double over his bruised stomach again while I pulled my hood back up. 

Eventually, when he was able to straighten, we continued on down to the lower floors of the building. Dalton's "stuff" turned out to be a sheaf of papers, which I examined carefully before I let him take them with him, ignoring his glares and scowls. And all the while, the question nagged at me: What had really happened to my father? 

_Later_ , I told the questioning little voice in the back of my mind. There would be time for this when I had dealt with Lavos. 

* * *

A week later, _they_ arrived. 

I was in the throne room, discussing the state of the work on the Ocean Palace with the Queen, when the doors unexpectedly swung open, and in walked a red-haired youth, a giant frog, and the blonde young woman who wasn't Leene. 

"Who are you? How did you get in here?!" Asking those questions was a royal prerogative, of course. 

"Your Majesty," I stepped in smoothly, "They are the evildoers I warned you of." 

"How _dare_ you think you could oppose me, you . . . foreigners! You're worse than the Gurus! Fools! Dalton, take them away!" 

It was his proper job, of course, as head of security, but I still hated relying on the one-eyed fool. I was actually surprised when he managed to subdue and imprison them . . . and I didn't like the one bit that that prison had to be so near the Mammon Machine, but the Queen had insisted, and I could not oppose her. Not yet. 

Seeing Schala, Janus, and Alfador go into that room afterwards almost broke my heart despite its armour of ice. There was only one possible reason that my sister could be entering that place voluntarily. Of _course_ her immense compassion and her fear for Melchior would lead her to help the trio and attempt to enlist them as allies . . . and I couldn't allow it. Letting those meddling, ignorant fools get any more deeply involved in this would be a disaster. 

I listened at the doorway until I heard, "And if you can, please rescue Melchior! He was sent to the Mountain of Woe for opposing the Queen. Please! You have to help him!" 

I couldn't have hoped for a better introduction, so I said, "I'm afraid I can't allow that . . ." and made my entrance. 

All five of them turned to look at me. I checked carefully for any signs of recognition on the faces of the time- travelling trio, and relaxed slightly when I saw none . . . although I couldn't be absolutely certain that I was reading the frog correctly, not having made much of a study of the expressions of amphibians. Still, he didn't exclaim "Magus!" or "Thou!" or anything else suitably trite, so I was probably safe for the present. 

"Your meddling tires me," I added. "You'll . . . just have to disappear!" Attack the fools now, with my full power behind me, and they'd go down, Masamune or no Masamune. They just weren't that strong. And with them gone, all my troubles would vanish . . . save one. 

I raised my hand to begin a spell, but, well . . . I should have known better. Schala stepped between me and them immediately. "You mustn't!" 

My hand clenched into a fist, and I lowered it, knowing that she would step in if I started a fight now . . . and I wasn't certain that I could bring myself to fight her. I would not risk her physical well-being if I could find any other way. 

"Stop!" Now, _that_ I hadn't expected: my younger self throwing himself into the argument. But he did worship Schala . . . and distrust me . . . 

Alfador pawed at my leg and meowed, as though begging me not to act, and that was the last straw. 

"All right . . . I'll spare them," I said through clenched teeth. "But in return, you _will_ cooperate, Schala." She'd said, that night, that her instincts led her to trust me, and I hoped that that was still true. Receiving a slight nod, I turned to the three time travellers. "Now, show me how you came here." 

It was a grim, quiet procession that negotiated the Skyways back to the surface. I had to remain at the back of the group, to keep an eye on the fractious time travellers. Several times, Schala made as though to speak, but each time, she bit her lower lip and silenced herself instead. 

I wasn't very surprised when the endpoint of our journey turned out to be the same cave that Lavos had dumped me into, but I made a show of examining the time portal anyway. 

"Hmm . . . so you came in through here. Now, Schala! After I throw them in, I want you to seal the portal shut." 

I wished fervently that I hadn't had to ask her . . . but all the spells I knew for locking down the expansion of something that way were weak ones. So many non-elemental utility enchantments of that nature had been lost with the Fall of Zeal . . . 

"N-no! You can't make me!" 

"Obey me! Their lives are at stake!" _Beloved sister, I am so, so sorry . . ._ There was that little needle of pain again . . . Why couldn't I make it go away? 

Perhaps something in my phrasing brought our late- night conversation back to her mind, because after a long hesitation, she said, "I . . . oh, all right . . ." 

I forced the trio into the portal. Schala sealed it. Then I left the cave, expecting her to follow, and pausing outside when she didn't. 

"Please forgive me . . ." 

My heart ached to hear those words, and the plea in her voice. 

She stayed in the cave for several minutes, and when she finally left, she seemed surprised to see me waiting outside. 

"I would hardly be likely to require you to make your way back to the Skyway alone, Princess," I said. 

"What, not just 'Schala' anymore?" she snapped, eyes flashing with fire. 

I gritted my teeth. "I apologize for that. It was rude of me . . . but I needed to make sure your attention stayed where it belonged." 

"Would you really have killed them?" The fire was fading, and suddenly, she just looked very tired—almost as tired as I felt. 

"If they'd continued to get in my way, I wouldn't have had a choice," I said, beginning to walk. "My goal is everything to me. If I do not succeed in what I have come here to do, my life will have had no meaning." And then I gritted my teeth tighter, realizing that I was saying far too much . . . but it was just so easy to be open with Schala. I'd missed being able to talk to her. 

"And does your life have to have a meaning? Most people . . . just _live_." 

I shook my head. "I long ago decided that wasn't an option for me. If I fail . . . then the person I love most will not continue to 'just live'. I _will_ save her . . . or, failing that, I will avenge her death." 

"You must love her very much," Schala said softly. "Poor Prophet . . . Is there anything I can do to help?" 

I couldn't answer, because I was afraid I was going to laugh at the irony. _Oh, Schala . . ._ It was so very like her to make that offer, not even knowing whom I wanted to save! 

"Just play your role, Princess," I managed at last. "If I'm to accomplish this, I need the Ocean Palace completed, among other things." 

A slender hand came to rest on my cloaked shoulder. "I have a name, and I make you free of it . . . but I'm not going to promise anything with respect to the Ocean Palace. It's a terrible place, and I think you know it." 

"Schala . . ." How could she make me feel so helpless? "You can hear the Black Wind, as I do. You know that there's a catastrophe approaching Zeal, regardless of the lies I may be telling your mother. Disaster became inevitable the moment the Mammon Machine was completed. If anything is to be salvaged at this point—if you want this world to have a future— you must permit events to play out as they are intended to do. Otherwise . . ." How could I explain it to her—what I'd sensed coming from Lavos in that one horrible moment all those years ago, before I'd fallen into time? "Otherwise, it will never end," I said at last. 

If I had to break the world—or myself—to keep Lavos from drawing her into a living nightmare, a fate worse than death, then so be it. My life had no value, in and of itself. It was only a means to an end. 

* * *

For the next two days, I drove the Earthbound at the Ocean Palace like a man possessed, while the Black Wind howled around me with hurricane force. I knew they'd be back, you see. The frog and those children. They were too stubborn to do anything else. 

I saw nothing of Schala during this time. I accepted the report that she'd departed for the Earthbound village with stony silence, and the Queen's order to Dalton to go and get her with clenched fists. That incompetent . . . I knew he wouldn't hurt her _deliberately_ , since the Queen needed her alive and reasonably healthy, but what the one-eyed idiot might do by _accident_ . . . I was extremely relieved, although I didn't dare show it, when he brought her back only slightly bruised. 

I led the way down into the Ocean Palace, now finished in all but the cosmetic sense. The constructs guarding it—even the ones that were little more than animals—recognized my aura instantly and refused to even approach our group. 

We arrived at the innermost chamber to see that the transfer of the Mammon Machine to its final location had already taken place, indicating that something had gone badly wrong up above—the teleportation mechanism involved had been designed to operate automatically in case of emergency, since the Machine was now the energy source for all the significant spells in Zeal. 

The time had to be now, before the frog and his friends could interrupt us again. Knowing that, I didn't protest when my mother ordered Schala to increase the power of the machine, although seeing the pain it caused her bothered me so much that I actually took a step toward her before I could stop myself. 

_And what would you do if you went to her?_ I asked myself angrily. _Hold her? The Queen would be outraged, and it might draw Lavos' attention as well. Wait . . . Just a little longer . . ._

"Ah, I can feel it! The pulse of eternal life!!!" My mother laughed wildly. 

"D . . . dark . . . force . . . wild energy . . . !" Schala forced out, ending the statement with a choking gasp. My hands were white-knuckled under my gloves, and my fangs drew blood from my lower lip as I forced myself not to speak, not to move. _Just a little longer . . . just a little . . ._

"Th-the Mammon Machine! Your Majesty, it's too dangerous!" 

Indeed, I could feel the movement of energies, wild and out of control . . . just as they had been the first time . . . They surged as my mother used the most elementary application of her lightning-elemental powers to give the machine . . . Well, it wasn't really controlled enough to be called a boost. A prod, perhaps. 

"Mother . . . !" Unlike myself, Schala, not understanding, was able to protest. 

"Don't stop, Schala! We're almost there . . . Immortality will be ours! Zeal will have the glory it deserves!" And she laughed again. "Too long have I waited . . . !" 

Schala's anguished eyes sought mine under the shadows of my hood, but I turned my head away. _Immortality,_ I thought with disgust. What use was there in living forever? How could one find purpose in a life that never ends? 

The energy of the Mammon Machine was rising rapidly toward its peak. Soon, this would be over, and my sister would be free. Soon . . . 

"Schala! We're here to save you, c'mon!!" 

My hand fell to the curved ornament that concealed my scythe. The frog and his friends . . . but it was too late for them to do anything now. 

"You're . . . !" The hope in my sister's eyes felt like a blow—all for them and not for me. 

Then the Machine's out-of-control power darted toward her, and she screamed for help. It was the last straw, and my self-restraint broke under the weight of it. 

"Schala . . . !" I managed to bottle everything back up again before I'd done more than say her name, but . . . oh, gods, her fear and her pain . . . the sudden light in her eyes as her gaze returned to me . . . 

"Crono . . . ! The Red Knife!" 

I realized belatedly that "Crono" was the red-headed boy's name as he pulled out a peculiar-looking weapon and threw it at the Mammon Machine. Not a long enough knife to damage it, I didn't think, and besides, his initial throw was a clear miss— 

"Here we go, Mune!" 

"Ready, big brother!" 

My eyes widened. _Melchior's dream creatures!_ The knife was made out of Dreamstone, then . . . 

Masa and Mune guided it into place before I could do anything, and I watched the little knife embed itself in the Machine and grow into a much larger, much more familiar weapon. _So this is the ultimate origin of the Masamune!_

It was far past the point where stopping the Machine would have mattered, anyway. Lavos was awake. I could tell that by the way the sound of the Black Wind had changed. It was gusty now, louder but also more ragged . . . 

Energies crackled wildly about the damaged machine. 

"It's coming!" Those words slipped involuntarily from my lips, unnoticed, I'm sure, in the pandemonium. 

"N-no, stop!" Schala begged. "That sword alone can't stop it!" 

The world distorted, and . . . 

Lavos. 

The frog and the boy and the blonde girl all immediately rushed forward to confront it, and I forced myself to hold back, although my blood was boiling inside me. Even if they only scratched Lavos' carapace, that would still be a weakness I could exploit. 

They had grown since they had confronted me at my castle, but not enough, not nearly enough. Still, they were a valiant lot, and I think they actually hurt Lavos, at least a little . . . but eventually, they all went down. 

_My turn,_ I thought, and stepped into the distortion. 

"I've waited for this . . ." I said, pulling back my hood. Shocked gasps of recognition came from the trio crumpled on the floor, and I allowed myself a thin smile. "I've been waiting for you, Lavos! I swore long ago . . . that I'd destroy you! No matter what the price! It is time to fulfill that vow. Feel my wrath!!" 

"What do you think you can do?" 

Now, _that_ voice was completely unexpected. I'd thought that my mother had fallen unconscious. Speculating on it later, I decided that Lavos had to have revived her with its dark energies. 

"Hmph! A false prophet . . . You'll be a snack for the great Lavos!" 

I think it was some measure of the relationship between us that she never recognized me as her son. The visceral connection between mother and child . . . either Lavos had severed it, or we had never had it in the first place. 

"Mother, please stop! This power can only bring ruin!" 

My eyes flicked toward where Schala stood, her hand reaching out toward Lavos . . . toward our mother, I think. But Queen Aleana Zeal had died quite some time ago. What was standing near Lavos was only her husk. 

"Get away from here, Schala!" Oh, the unholy light in her eyes . . . "The almighty life force of Lavos lives in all of us . . . You are a part of it! You cannot change fate now! Oppose me and I will destroy you also!" 

I couldn't stop the lightnings that shot toward my sister. Her scream tore at me, but there was nothing I could do—I couldn't risk going to her now, and making a target of myself in the process. I would need all of my strength for the task in front of me. 

"Come, Prophet, feel the power of Lavos!" 

Schala's pain, that instant of distraction . . . My compassion did cost me everything, in the end, because it kept me from being alert enough to escape when Lavos' lightnings reached toward me. 

It felt like the marrow was being drawn out of my very bones, never mind the blood from my veins. Auras were vanishing and the sound of the Black Wind died away as my body became a single mass of agony. 

"My powers are being drained!" It was more an exclamation of incredulity than anything else. How could it possibly hold so much? _I_ had never in my adult life been able to draw my magic this far down, no matter what spells I cast! Snarling, I forced myself back to my feet. "I won't . . . be beaten! I survived the darkness to defeat you!" With shaking hands, I drew my scythe out of nothingness. "Take this, Lavos!" 

I forced myself to stand steady as I swung at the giant creature's beak—no blow from a mere hand weapon stood a chance of penetrating anywhere else that I could see. It did sink in a little way—I felt it, and judging from the flash of light that came from inside the carapace, Lavos must have felt it too. But then the light stopped, and I could see that, at best, I'd made a tiny scratch. 

"Wh-what . . . ?" I asked shakily of no-one in particular. "It doesn't work?!" 

Then my mother, or what was left of her, waved her hand, and I made an inarticulate sound of pain as I was thrown back. 

"Foolish one! Your measly power can't touch Lavos! This is from me to you! You shall enjoy eternal life . . . as part of Lavos!" 

All I could do was snarl impotently. The worst-case scenario . . . my efforts to avoid it seemed to have brought it about instead, and I could do nothing to stop it. My hands scrabbled at the blue moire that served as ground here, as Lavos began to pull me in—pull _us_ in. _Schala! No!_

"Magus! Thou art mine to defeat!" _Getting a little proprietary, are you, Glenn?_ I wondered wearily. 

Then the red-haired boy got up. Battered, bruised, and bloodied, he limped forward to stand directly in front of Lavos. 

"Haven't you given up yet? What do you hope to do? You challenge Lavos with that battered body of yours?" As my mother's corpse laughed evilly, I wished I had enough of my power left to give her a hot-foot, or at least enough physical strength to throw something at her. "See the power of Lavos and feel his wrath!" 

The red-head said nothing, just raised his arms in what might have been the beginning of a spell invocation. He never got to finish it. Lavos projected a beam of energy that tore him apart even as his companions cried his name. 

"Desist, Crono!" 

"Crono! 

Then the unexpected happened. Lavos spat us back out into the Ocean Palace again, where the stone floor left me feeling every one of my bruises. 

Slowly, with each movement of arm or leg requiring tremendous effort and total concentration, I was able to get to my feet again, using my scythe for support. 

"I can't . . . beat him," I murmured to myself. "Lavos . . . !" After training so hard for so long, how could I still be so _weak_?! 

Then the lights flickered and the room shook, and I realized that I would have to perform my self-recriminations elsewhere. Without the Mammon Machine and its energies to fuel the spells that reinforced it against the weight of the water, the Ocean Palace was going to be crushed by the pressure of the very sea that was meant to isolate and protect it. 

I mumbled the words of a teleportation spell . . . and for the first time since my pseudo-Metamorphosis, failed to feel the responding tug of power. Nor had the sound of the Black Wind returned. There was . . . nothing left in me. 

Meanwhile, the blonde girl was shouting the dead boy's name, and the frog was tugging frantically at her arm, trying to convince her to flee the area. Schala, like me, had gotten shakily to her feet, and was staring at the three of us, her expression soft and sad. 

"The last of my pendant's power will send you to safety," she said, and I stared at her like a witless fool. "I know you can't forgive her, but . . . please don't hate Mother, or our kingdom. I'm so sorry! Now, off you go!" 

I grabbed at her sleeve with a shaking hand as the space-gates she'd summoned transported the frog and the girl away. 

"Schala!" I was too weak to shout at her, but I made my voice as forceful as I could. "You must flee this place as well. Leave me here, if you're not strong enough to transport us both, but—" 

I'd forgotten how sweet her smile was. It stopped me in mid-sentence. 

"No, Janus," she said gently. "It has to be you." 

I stared at her in consternation, ignoring the shaking room and the wildly flickering lights. In the silence, I heard something burst, somewhere far away, and the first cold arm of the sea swirled about our feet. 

"You . . . how?" was the best question I could manage. "When?" 

"Now that your aura's been drawn down this way, I can sense it—the charm I gave you," she explained. "I almost can't believe that you kept it for so long! Janus . . . You've become a fine, strong man—stronger than I will ever be. If Lavos is ever to be defeated, you must live to join in the fight. It's the world's best chance. Don't worry about me! Lavos has left this place riddled with time-space discontinuities. I'll . . . find some way out . . . Now, go!" 

She jerked her sleeve from my hand, and I found myself spinning away from her, into blue-shot darkness. 

" _Schalaaaa!_ " But I couldn't even hear myself shouting her name—not until I emerged into a cold and windy place and fell into snow from some point at least four feet in the air. 

That was the last straw for my drained and battered body. Even my powerful will could no longer hold me conscious after such an insult. 

* * *

When I woke up, it was still cold and windy, and I still hurt. 

_Add "dark" to that list,_ I thought as I hauled myself into a sitting position in the man-shaped depression that I'd made in the snow. Night, somewhere in the wilderness of 12000BC. Overhead, the moon was just visible as a soft light shining through the clouds. 

My cloak had kept me from freezing to death, but it hadn't done anything for the bruises or the headache. I _had_ recovered a little while I'd been unconscious—I could hear the Black Wind sighing at me, as though from the other side of a windowpane—but my magic was still well below the level to which I could have drained it voluntarily. 

My half-numb hands searched hidden pockets, but all I turned up was a solitary vial of tonic—everything else had either been used up, or the vials had shattered and the contents leaked away under recent abuse. I used the tonic anyway, on the grounds that it was better than nothing, and a few of the worst bruises shrank a little. 

I emptied the broken glass out of my pockets, stuck the empty tonic vial opening-down at the center of the pile, and stared at it for a while, wondering what in hell I was supposed to do now. Lavos . . . I wasn't strong enough to take on Lavos . . . My hands curled into fists. 

Everything, my entire life . . . it had all been a waste. I hadn't even been able to save Schala. Schala . . . 

My icy detachment was completely gone, shattered beneath the weight of recent events. Nor had I enough strength remaining to be stoic . . . and in any case I was alone here. The scream of rage and pain that worked its way out of my throat sounded like the cry of some wounded, maddened animal. Tears flowed freely down my face as I beat at the snowy ground with my fists. 

Perhaps fortunately, I didn't have the strength left for much of that kind of wild emotion, either. After a few moments, I was lying on my stomach, exhausted again, with tears still leaking from my eyes and freezing in my lashes. 

_I'm going to freeze to death if I stay here._ The thought percolated slowly through my brain. Schala had wanted me to live. I wasn't going to waste her sacrifice, no matter how little I thought my own life was worth. 

I used my scythe, which had been lying not far away through all this, to lever myself to my feet. On snow-covered ground, it made a fair walking-stick. 

The problem was that I had no idea what direction to walk in. I didn't recognize my surroundings, which meant that I had no idea how to get to Algetty or one of the Skyways from here . . . assuming that any of those places was still there. Zeal couldn't have survived the destruction of the Mammon Machine . . . 

I found the first footprints by tripping over them and going down on one knee, my gloved hand sliding down the haft of my scythe. There were perhaps a half-dozen sets of them, and they all went in the same direction regardless of whether the prints were from crude Earthbound buskins or the fine slippers of the Enlightened Ones. 

I could, I decided, do worse than to follow the trail. Even if the people at the end of it had already died of exposure, one of them might have a vial of ether in his pockets. 

I limped along by moonlight for what seemed like hours before I stumbled into the rutted, trampled area around the tents. Some of them even had smoke rising from them. Warmth, maybe even _food_ , although it wouldn't be the raw meat my body craved . . . 

I clawed my way past the flap of the largest tent, and then just stood there for a while, drinking in the warmth. There was a firepit there, and a Nu stood beside it, staring at me with the blank expression typical of its species. There was a human there too, an Enlightened One who was just struggling out of his nest of blankets. He was staring at me too, and I realized belatedly that I hadn't pulled my hood back up. Well, there was no point to it now—he had to have gotten a good enough look to know that there was something odd about me. 

"Have you been out there ever since Zeal came down? You must be half-frozen! Come over here and sit down." The human gestured me toward the firepit. 

It always surprises me when a human does something kind for no apparent reason. As a species, we have always been destroyers to rival Lavos, and yet every so often, there is this tiny flicker of light in the darkness . . . 

"I'm fine where I am," I said—the shadows were thicker away from the fire. "Zeal did fall, then." 

The man blinked. "Where have you been? How did you manage to escape if—" 

"I was at the Ocean Palace," I cut him off wearily. "I assumed that Zeal fell when the energy from the Mammon Machine was cut off, but I wasn't actually able to see what was happening on the surface." Then a vague hope rose. "Has . . . Princess Schala been found?" 

A shake of the head. "No one's seen her since the Fall. You probably know as much about what happened to her as anyone—the two others we found on the shore, the woman and the frog, said that she was at the Ocean Palace." 

"She used the last of her power to send myself and two others to safety . . . 'the woman and the frog', as you said," I replied grimly. "She said she hoped to escape as well, but . . ." 

"Damn. That's just . . . damn. And the Queen?" 

"Better off dead," I said. "Lavos absorbed her." 

"Um. The Chief should hear this—I'll go get him, if you don't mind." 

I caught at his sleeve as he went past me. "Wait. The woman and the frog—what happened to them?" 

"Dalton took them." 

"Dalton—you mean that idiot is still alive?!" The one- eyed man had to have a strain of cockroach somewhere in his ancestry, because he seemed able to survive anything. 

"Look, the Chief will be able to explain this better than I can . . ." 

I let go of his sleeve. "All right, then. Go." 

When he'd hurried out of the tent, I noticed that the Nu was still looking at me. 

"I was wondering . . . would you like to buy something?" it asked when it realized it had my attention. 

I almost laughed. Of all the ridiculous things! Did this creature really expect to find some use for money in this new world? But then, if it had been programmed as a shopkeeper . . . Nu can't go against their programming. 

"What do you have?" I asked. 

A few minutes later, I left the tent, feeling a great deal more like myself after all the ether I'd guzzled. I'd bankrupted myself picking through the Nu's wares, but that didn't matter. Money was always easy to come by. One thing did worry me, though: ten vials of concentrated ether, and I still wasn't back up to full strength. It felt as though Lavos had strained something inside me when it had drained my power, and what I knew of such injuries suggested that only time could heal the damage. 

I had no interest in talking to the chief of this village, whoever he might be. I'd already learned the only two things of possible interest. 

Dalton. I shook my head as I rose from the surface of the packed snow at the edge of the village and began to skim silently through the night. He wouldn't be able to hold the frog for long—judging from their fight against Lavos, Glenn and his friends were far stronger than the one-eyed fool. They'd be back, and . . . 

And what? I stopped, floating in midair above the snow. What did they have to do with me? Why did I care? Where was I going? 

Well, that frog . . . he seemed to think he had some kind of unfinished business with me. Maybe it was time for it to get resolved. I would find somewhere quiet, and wait for them to deal with Dalton. 

Midday found me at the northernmost point of the island, staring out at the ocean that had swallowed the floating islands. I was not at all surprised to hear the crunch of feet on the gravel that covered much of the long upward slope at whose head I stood. 

I turned slowly. The frog and the blonde woman, and the girl with the odd headgear had joined them . . . "So, it's you . . ." 

"Magus!" 

I turned away again in disgust. _Do you think I can't remember my own name without you constantly reminding me of it, Glenn?_

What kind of resolution could the two of us achieve, I wondered, if these children didn't understand what I was doing here in the first place? 

"Behold," I said softly. "Everything's at the bottom of the sea. Gone is the magical realm of Zeal, and all the dreams and ambitions of its people. I once lived there . . . but I was a different person then." 

Illusion is one of the most basic powers of shadow magic, which cloaks and conceals as well as distorting space and time. There was a bad moment, though, as I began to weave the images of my past, when I realized that I had two parallel sets of memories covering the last few moments of my childhood in Zeal. I had somehow been _both_ in the Ocean Palace and at Algetty when Lavos' Gate took me. I remembered myself from the outside, my resentment against the stranger whom my cat seemed to have developed an unreasonable affection for . . . _This is the result of our tampering with time—mine, and that of Crono and his friends. Two possibilities—two sets of memories—and yet, for the present to exist, they have to converge to a single point._

Grimly, I sorted one from the other, and presented the original, untampered events to the frog and his companions. There was a moment of silence that lasted long after the illusions had faded. Then . . . 

"You . . . ! You're . . . Janus?" The dark-haired girl was marginally quicker on the uptake than the other two, it seemed. 

I groped for words . . . found them. "Ever since Lavos's time portal stranded me in the Middle Ages . . . I have waited to even the score. You interrupted me just when I had summoned Lavos to my castle." I smiled thinly. "How ironic that, having been drawn into yet another portal, I would end up in this age. Being from the future, my knowledge of the past enabled me to convince the Queen that I was a mighty oracle. But no history book could have prepared me for what happened here." My smile faded. "Unimaginable is the power of Lavos. Anyone who dares to oppose . . . it . . . meets certain doom." My own defeat still rankled, and they were available targets . . . "At this rate, you, too, will meet a hideous fate. Just like that poor fool, Crono!" Salt rubbed in their wounds, which couldn't possibly be as painful as mine . . . 

" . . . ! You dare to insult him!" Glenn might not be quick on the uptake, but there was nothing wrong with his overdeveloped sense of honour. 

"He's history! Play with fire and you get burned." If I could goad them into killing me—and battered and weakened as I was, I knew I stood no chance against all three of them—then at least my agony would end. 

"Magus!! Hold thy tongue!" 

I gave them a razor-sharp grin, deliberately showing my fangs. "You wish to fight me?" 

A long hesitation. Then they managed to surprise me again: the frog's shoulders sagged, the dark girl lowered her peculiar weapon, and the fire faded from the blonde's eyes. 

Glenn looked up, meeting my gaze. " . . . Vanquishing thee will return neither Crono nor Cyrus." 

I could see, in those huge, guileless, amphibian eyes, that it was true: he had given up his revenge, the fool. 

_So, Schala, what do I do now?_ I wondered as the trio turned away from me and began picking their way back down the steep slope. _Apparently, I can't even find an . . . honourable . . . way to die. What do you expect me to do with this life you saved? You charged me with the fight against Lavos, but I'm just not strong enough, whatever you may have said . . ._

Or . . . _alone_ I wasn't strong enough. I didn't truly want this, but if it was the only way . . . 

"Wait," I said, stopping the trio in its tracks. "I'll come with you." 

The dark girl blinked, and said, "Pardon?!" as though she was doubting her sanity. 

I chose my words very, very carefully. "You know, there might just be a way to bring him back." 

I didn't say it because I cared about their precious Crono, of course. If I was going to do this, I wanted us to have the best possible chance against Lavos . . . and then there was the matter of the blonde girl's eyes. I remembered seeing that look in the mirror when I'd first dropped into the sixth century, that slightly dazed, half-unbelieving expression that said, _This is all a bad dream, isn't it? That person can't really be gone . . ._

"Nonsense . . . ?!" Poleaxed shock is a very odd- looking expression on an anthropoid frog. 

"Gaspar, the Guru of Time, knows how to restore lost and misplaced time streams . . ." Or at least, he'd _claimed_ he did, in one particularly memorable drunken conversation overheard in Melchior's laboratory when I was about five. "Your friend, as a time traveller who died outside his own time, would seem to qualify. The problem," I added as I began picking my way down the slope with them, "will be finding the old fool. In the original history, Lavos sucked him into time along with the other two Gurus. I have no idea where or when he landed, except that it wasn't anywhere near me. My tampering in this version of history had him placed under house arrest as a possible conspirator, but I would guess that he was sucked into time regardless of that, just like Melchior and my younger self." 

"So we might have to search all of history," the dark girl said. 

"Perhaps that other old man, the one who waits at the End of Time, doth know something," Glenn suggested. 

"Sounds like it might be worth a try," the dark girl admitted. "Oh, by the way, I'm Lucca Ashtear—I just realized we'd never been properly introduced." She held out her hand, and the expression on my face must have been quite something, because she smiled. "Hasn't anyone ever offered to shake your hand before, Prince Janus?" 

"That's no longer my name," I said sharply, for I had never felt less like the boy who had once borne it. 

Lucca's smile never wavered. "I take it that's a 'no'. Well, then, it's high time you got familiar with the custom." She grabbed my hand and squeezed it. "Damn, what are those gloves of yours made of? They're stiff." She didn't pause for me to answer. "She's Marle, by the way, and I guess you already know Frog. You'll meet Ayla and Robo when we get to the End of Time." 

My eyebrows rose. "There are more of you?" 

"Seven, now, I guess . . . or . . . six . . ." She shook herself. "No, I won't give up hope! We'll find this Gaspar, and he'll tell us how to restore Crono." 

At the bottom of the slope, when I pushed off the ground so that I could float over the snow rather than wade through it, Lucca watched with interest. 

"That has to be handy. I don't suppose you could teach me how to do it?" 

I shook my head. "You're of the wrong element." What was it going to take to get this girl to shut up? 

"Which means?" She was trotting easily alongside me, her breath creating white clouds in the cold air. 

"How could you possibly have achieved magical operancy without absorbing the most basic lessons?" I snapped. "Your elemental affinity defines the kind of magic you can do. Your domain is fire—temperature, combustion, and, by extension, transformation. In order to fly, you need to be a shadow-user, which allows control of space, or a wind-user, who could thicken the air to lift himself." These fool children . . . 

"Which means that you're . . . shadow, right? But you seem to have no trouble casting fire spells." 

"If I ever meet your teacher, I am going to strangle him," I said. "Do I have to explain everything to you from the beginning?" 

"Actually, that might help," Lucca said seriously. "Spekkio . . . kind of _gave_ us our powers without explaining much of anything. He mentioned that there were four elements, but that's it. I'm really kind of relieved to know that there _are_ some kind of rules for this magic stuff—I mean, I'm a scientist, so I believe there are rules to everything, but . . ." She waved her hands expressively. "Anyway, we can get into that later—we're almost there." 

The peculiar white vehicle had been parked not far from the edge of a village—probably the one I'd stumbled into the night before, although I couldn't have proved it. 

"That looks like one of Belthasar's creations," I observed. 

"It is. Belthasar fell into 2300AD—we got this from him there." Lucca hopped up onto one of the craft's wings. "It's going to be a bit of a tight fit, I'm afraid, but it won't be for long. Just try not to jog my elbow." 

The controls actually looked rather familiar, arranged in a way that anyone born of Zeal would instantly recognize even if he'd never learned to pilot such a ship. I squeezed into the front beside Lucca, all but sitting in her lap, and watched as she manipulated the various levers and buttons studding the panel. The craft lifted off . . . and then shuddered, as though struck by a violent wind. 

Lucca was wrestling with the controls, especially the stick in the center of the panel, which seemed to be trying to jerk sideways. I reached over and put my hand on top of hers, lending her a bit of additional strength with which to steady it—if this little ship crashed, my life would be at risk, too, and I still wasn't finished with it. The dark girl gave me a grateful look. 

"We're getting some interference from an enormous Gate!" she explained, having to raise her voice to be heard over the sudden roar of water outside as her fingers continued to flicker over the panel. Then she froze in mid-motion, staring at one readout in particular. "It can't be! Lavos??!!" 

Something massive was rising out of the turbulent grey waters north of the island that was currently the only appreciable landmass on the face of the planet. It took me a moment to recognize it, mainly because the idea was so ridiculous. 

" . . . The Ocean Palace?" I murmured, mostly to myself. "This is impossible . . . !" Was Schala still in there, or had she escaped? There was no knowing, not yet, I told myself. 

"Ridiculous, but not impossible," Lucca corrected. "I mean, it's there, right? We have to believe the evidence of our eyes, especially since it doesn't look like it's going anywhere. Things seem to be settling down, though—I think I can take us to the End of Time now." 

My first controlled trip through time, without being battered about by Lavos, was . . . a revelation. I spent the brief interval between our departure from the Fall of Zeal and our arrival at the End of Time with all of the subtler senses that I possessed fully extended. 

It would take time to design the spell, but I now knew that, one day, I would be able to do this for myself if I wanted to—pass from era to era by choice, rather than getting flung through time like a child's toy. Whether such an ability would be of any value or not remained to be seen, but . . . 

I was the last to leave the time vehicle and mount the steps to the peculiar platform built on nowhere that was the End of Time. As such, I didn't hear the first bit of the conversation the others were having with the old man. I came in on, "I wish I could lend a hand . . ." 

"Only the Guru of Time can help us now," I said sharply. 

The old man blinked at me. "Hey, where have you been? So that's your story . . . And just _look_ at you now . . . You've become quite formidable!" 

"Heh?" I wasn't sure whether to laugh, or grab the old man by the throat and demand that he tell us whatever he knew. That rambling speech didn't suggest that he was terribly sane, and yet there was something about him that was nigglingly, maddeningly familiar . . . 

"The Guru of Time, eh . . . ? Heard of him, of course, but what do you want with him?" 

"We've heard he might be the one to bring our Crono back," the frog said, shooting me a sidelong glance. 

"To bring back lost loved ones . . . It's what everyone wants . . . Crono must be proud . . . to have friends like you." 

_Useless fool,_ I thought, turning my back on him. The others seemed to think much the same, because Lucca and Marle moved to flank me. 

"Hey. Here. Take this with you." 

It looked, I thought as the frog accepted it, like an odd sort of brownish-coloured egg with an irregularly-marked surface. 

The others were evidently just as puzzled as I was. 

"An egg?" Lucca asked. "Is it hard-boiled or three- minute?" 

"Let us call that the Chrono Trigger," the old man said in a lecturing tone. "It is pure potential. By unleashing a certain course of events, it can have a powerful effect on time. Ask the one who made the Epoch, your Wings of Time, how to hatch it . . . Like any egg, it represents possibility . . . It may or may not . . . hatch. But the Chrono Trigger gives you the potential to get your friend back . . . The egg will have an effect equal to the effort you put into the search. No more, and no less. Don't forget that. As long as you keep Crono in your heart, the day you are dreaming of shall arrive . . ." 

I understood about mid-way through the mini-lecture exactly what was going on. In my defense, I hadn't seen Gaspar since I was seven years old—he'd remained sequestered in his lab during my stint as the Prophet—and even then he'd been far less evident around the Palace than either of the other Gurus. I'd seen him at most three or four times in the average year. 

"I get it . . . it's you, isn't it . . . ?" I wasn't about to let him continue to get away with his little lies. 

The frog jumped a bit. "Wh-what? So . . . thou art Gaspar, the Guru of Time?" 

The old man shuffled a bit and adjusted his hat. "Um, well . . . I believe that's what they used to call me . . . ages ago . . ." 

"Are you too senile to remember your own name?" I asked irritably, and was skewered by a razor-sharp glance. 

"Are you too senile to remember yours, Prince Janus?" 

My hand came up sharply, and I spoke the opening words of a Dark Bomb spell . . . but was unable to complete it because the frog had one of my arms and Lucca had the other, and I couldn't make the required gestures. 

"You have no idea what I've been through, you old fool!" I snarled, helpless to do anything more. "At most, you've stayed here and watched!" 

"And you could kill me with a few words and a wave of your hand," Gaspar replied. "You may be the most powerful single mage in the history of the world . . . and to think that we'd all become more than half-convinced that you were little more than an Earthborn, just because we didn't want to see what was right under our noses! But surely you've realized by now that strength alone isn't enough. Your powers, impressive though they are, are not sufficient by themselves to defeat Lavos." 

I scowled at him. "Why do you think I'm here?" I demanded. 

"I find it difficult to answer questions of motivation at the best of times," the Guru admitted, "and you are a very complex man. For all I know, you came here merely seeking a place to rest and recover before you tried again." 

"If I failed twice, why should I be so stupid as to assume that I would succeed on the third attempt?" I asked, jerking one arm free of the frog's loosening grip and half-turning away. "Or the fourth. Or the forty-eighth, for that matter! I don't understand what it is that I need and don't have, but it's clear that I must find it if I mean to succeed." I pulled loose from Lucca as well and strode to the far end of the platform, feeling winds from beyond Time ripple my cloak and play with my hair. 

I remained there, leaning on a railing and staring out into nothingness, for what seemed like quite a while—an hour? A day? Did time have any meaning at all in that place?—before someone lightly touched my bare arm. 

_Lucca._ Very deliberately, I turned my back to her. "Leave me be." 

"In a moment," the girl said. "We've been to see Belthasar, or at least the Nu he left behind, and we think we've got everything we need to get Crono back, but we're going to have to pass through a dangerous area on the way, and, well, we'd like you with us." 

I blinked and turned back around. " _Me?_ Why? You've surely gathered that I don't have any affection for your precious Crono, even if he did try to save my sister." 

Lucca winced. "Well, actually, the truth is . . . We need an excuse not to take Marle. She and Crono were . . . Anyway, she isn't very stable right now, if you know what I mean. If we tried to bump her from the party in favour of Ayla or Robo, she would know something was up, but after Gaspar's little speech about you being the most powerful mage in history, we think we could convince her that you're Crono's best chance." 

"I suppose it's better than just standing here and waiting," I admitted with a sigh. "Very well. Where are we going?" 

* * *

Death Peak reminded me a great deal of the world above which Zeal had floated—cold, windy, and barren. The Lavos Spawn and their response to the normally more efficient, area-clearing classes of magic were an unpleasant surprise, however, and my scythe got more of a workout on the way up than it had in the ten years previous. 

I remember wiping my forehead with the back of a gloved hand, after taking out a Spawn that had ensconced itself inside a cave, and catching the frog looking at me with grudging respect. I nodded to him, and was a bit startled when he nodded back. 

The summit of the place reminded more of Mount Woe than anything else—I think it was the sheer emptiness of it. One twisted, frozen, dead tree . . . what were we supposed to find here? 

Lucca pulled the Chrono Trigger out of the satchel that hung at her hip, which always seemed to have far more space inside it than its size suggested it should, and held it up. "You who fear the night and fight the coming of darkness . . . Give us strength! Crono!" 

For an instant, nothing seemed to happen. Then the Chrono Trigger floated up out of her hand . . . and broke apart into a thousand infinitesimal pieces. 

"It-it shattered!!" the frog stuttered. "'Tis folly . . . to have travelled so far." 

"Don't be sad," Lucca said, although there was a distinct hitch in her voice as she spoke. "It was silly to think we could get him back . . ." Then she broke, too. "Crono! Say something! Don't ignore us!" 

_What am I doing here?_ I wondered, then was startled as the world suddenly darkened. Something huge was moving in front of the sun . . . too quickly to be a natural eclipse . . . Everything around us wavered, going blue-grey-blue- black-blue— 

Lavos! Suddenly, we were standing in front of the creature. But . . . 

"Like stone statues," the frog observed, looking around us at the other people . . . at our unmoving former selves. "'Tis eerie . . ." 

"A time freeze," I said. The theory had existed, back in Zeal, but . . . "I never thought it possible." 

Lucca smiled. "The Chrono Trigger . . . the Guru's Time Egg . . . ! And there we all are! We're back in that instant!" 

I clenched my fists to keep myself from doing anything. _Schala . . . !_ She was _right there_ , mere inches beyond the tips of my fingers . . . but I had no clone, no doll such as the others were wrestling into position, and none such could have fulfilled her role in the aftermath of the Ocean Palace disaster, in any case. I had to let this opportunity go, I knew it, and yet it was enough to make me shake with rage. 

_The Palace rose above the waves,_ I reminded myself. _That means it wasn't completely flooded out. Somehow or other, she survived—she must have. And one day, I'll find her._

Frog and Lucca were grinning at each other over the frozen body of Crono, whom they'd manhandled away from Lavos. 

"Save the hellos for later!" I snapped. "We've got work to do." 

The moment the Time Freeze spat us out back on the summit of Death Peak, Crono thawed, came alive again. 

I walked away from the withered tree and the trio grouped around the base of it—I didn't think I could bear being near their happiness just then. Why should they have their red- haired fool back, when the best person I had ever known still remained condemned? 

"Magus . . ." 

And how had Lucca managed to come up behind me without my noticing? 

"I'll meet you back at the Epoch," I told her, and stepped off the cliff beside which I stood. 

None of them could fly, and I wanted very badly to be alone. 

I suffered through our return to the End of Time in the crowded Epoch, but moved away from the others when Gaspar began another long, babbling speech, and stood near the railing again. 

_Odd,_ I thought as I stared into the emptiness beyond the platform. _I didn't realize it before, but I can't hear the Black Wind here—not even the little background hum that's been with me for as long as I can remember. This place is . . ._ Then I had to shake my head, frustrated, because as far as I could tell, the End of Time made no sense at all. 

I used such trivialities to distract myself from the emotional wounds that our trip to the past via Death Peak had torn open again just when they'd begun to scab over. Trying to fathom this nonsensical place meant that I didn't have to think about Schala, or Lavos . . . or myself. 

* * *

I suppose I should recount my final meeting with my trio of ex-comrades, Ozzie, Flea, and Slash, both for the sake of tying up loose ends and because it eventually came back to haunt me. 

I'd been standing near the rail and staring into nothing for an indefinite length of time when Lucca came over and tapped me on the elbow. 

"Um, Magus? Frog and I are thinking of going back to 600AD, and we were wondering if you'd like to come with us." 

"To do what?" I asked, and then added, glancing around and noting that the population of the End of Time had shrunk at some point while I hadn't been paying attention, "And where has your friend Crono gone?" 

"He went to 2300AD with Robo and Marle to check on something," Lucca replied with a shrug. "As for us, we're going—" 

"To clean up thy mess," the frog completed. 

I gave him a sharp, cold look. " _My_ mess?" 

The tone of voice should have warned him off, but I got the impression that Glenn was never that sensible. "Thy follower Ozzie attempts to raise the spectre of war again." 

"That idiot," I said. "And to think that he used to be a coward." 

"He is yet thus, on a personal level," Glenn pointed out. "But if we let him proceed, he will slaughter many humans— and many of thy Mystics—for naught." 

"They were never _my_ Mystics, except in their own deluded minds," I snapped. 

The frog made a sound in his throat. "I thought thou wert a man of greater honour than that." 

"And how would _honour_ have helped me against Lavos? I needed to act expediently, not waste my time on—" 

"Wait a minute, you two! Let's stick to what's important. Magus, are you coming, or not?" 

I smiled thinly. "I'll come. It will be a pleasure to finally be able to tell Ozzie what I've thought of him all this time." 

The frog shook his head silently. 

"All right then. So where did I put that remote control . . . ?" Lucca was patting down her pockets. 

_Remote . . . ? Ah, I see._ "You can call the Epoch back from where your friends have taken it?" I asked with interest. 

"And send it back to where it was when I called it," Lucca confirmed. "I designed it to keep someone like Dalton from stealing it from us again . . . Ah, here we go." 

Ozzie, naturally, had migrated back to his old fort—on the way there, we flew past the more substantial building that I'd had constructed, and discovered that the topmost storey was . . . gone. Lavos, no doubt. Summoning that thing into a confined space had not, in retrospect, been one of my better ideas. 

Ozzie must have seen the Epoch approaching, because he was waiting to meet us in the anteroom just inside the door. 

"What the . . . Whoa!! You . . . you're the great Magus!" 

I smiled thinly. "You're doing well, Ozzie!" I hadn't honestly believed that the Mystics would have let him become king again in my absence—Slash, with Flea as his consort, would have been the better choice, but perhaps the others had felt they were too young . . . 

"The nerve! Deserting your fellow Mystics to serve these humans! You're a traitor! You're not our king! Why did you desert us?" 

If he hadn't run away so quickly, I might even have answered him—especially since I suspected that finding out that there was such a thing as a human with my level of magical power would have made his head explode. 

I rolled my eyes while Lucca and Glenn exchanged glances and sighed. Then the three of us followed Ozzie deeper into the castle. 

It didn't take us long to catch up with him again. 

"You pesky, low-down, good-for-nothings!" Ozzie never had had much of a talent for insults. "Ooh! I'll have you begging for mercy." That was almost enough to make me laugh. "Flea!" 

Flea's sudden appearance owed more to the amulet that I'd long ago made for him than it did to his own powers, although I was probably the only one there who knew that. "You sent for me?" he asked Ozzie. Then he noticed my presence, and gave me a cold, angry look. "Well, if it isn't Sir Magus! Who'd you bribe to get in here? Traitors like you deserve a beating." 

That expression . . . was he actually feeling _hurt_? Had he believed in me to such an extent that my apparent betrayal actually _mattered_ to him? _Flea, you fool._

"Oh great Ozzie, stand back, and let _me_ take care of these cretins." 

Definitely hurt, I decided, watching his eyes. Still bleeding inside, even. How could my actions possibly have affected him so much? 

"I'm counting on you, Flea!" I barely even noticed Ozzie leaving. My whole attention was centered on the slender Mystic sorcerer whose father had been my mentor. 

"Get ready for a _slapping_ good time—get it?" His whole attention was focussed on me, too . . . not that it ended up doing him any good. His spells weren't strong enough to penetrate my defenses. I walked forward, unharmed, through a spectacular noise- and light-show, and punched him in the jaw. 

It knocked him back into a heap on the floor and utterly disrupted his spells, of course. He lay there for a moment, blinking up at me, before he got his act together again and scrambled to his feet. 

" _Oh!_ Just you wait! We'll teach you a lesson!" His hand stroked the amulet that I'd given him, and he vanished. 

Lucca and the frog were both staring at me. I shrugged. 

I wasn't about to tell them that Flea's pain had, just for an instant, reached me and reminded me that I . . . owed him a life. I could have saved Caeron, all those years ago, if I had known what I did today, but . . . well. 

_I'm getting soft,_ I thought with a frown, but I'd discovered, while standing at that railing and staring out at the End of Time, that I couldn't quite recover the icy detachment that had served me so well for so long. Perhaps my failure to defeat Lavos and save Schala had broken something inside me . . . or perhaps, like my magical abilities, it was merely sprained. 

Time would tell. 

We climbed relentlessly through the castle, avoiding Ozzie's ridiculous deathtraps. When Slash challenged us, the frog stepped in, thankfully relieving me of that onerous duty . . . but as I had with Flea, Glenn left the Greater Imp swordsman alive to scurry away. 

Perhaps we'd have been better off if we'd killed them both at the first opportunity, because I wasn't pleased to find the two of them waiting in the antechamber of the old throne room, flanking Ozzie to either side. 

I very nearly doubled over laughing when I saw their "invincible" items. Flea had clearly worked hard on the vest and the pants, but the magics on them were still . . . less than impressive. And Slash's sword . . . I vaguely remembered Caeron working on it, a long time ago, before he'd rejected it as not significantly better than a normal blade. 

It was Slash that I ended up facing, while Glenn dueled Ozzie and Lucca played a game of dodge-and-aim with Flea. I could have taken the Greater Imp out easily with my magic, but instead I got out my scythe and engaged him at his own level. 

Let my former teacher see just how much more powerful than him I had become. 

However, Slash was still very, very good. I drove him back, and back again, yet I was never quite able to dash his weapon from his hands. 

_I don't want to kill him,_ I realized after one particularly furious exchange. _Why? He's the enemy now . . . isn't he?_ And yet, for a very long time, he'd been . . . a comrade. 

I snorted at my foolishness and spun my scythe in my hands. _Time to stop playing games._ The next time Slash came toward me, I snapped off a quick illusion spell and teleported around behind him, bringing my scythe down hard in the instant during which he froze up in surprise. This time, my blade met only flesh and bone. _There._ He wouldn't be recovering from a wound like that: I'd cut down through his right shoulder and well into his ribcage. 

I flicked the blood off my weapon . . . and was nearly run down by Flea, who plunged past me, clearly concerned for his lover. I hesitated only an instant before deciding that leaving him alive without his Slash . . . would not have been a kindness. 

I still wasn't recovered enough to invoke the Dark Matter spell, so, instead, I cast Black Hole at him, knowing that he would be unable to resist it in his distracted state. If I had known then what I know now . . . well, let us merely say that I would have chosen otherwise. But as matters stood, Flea was sucked into nothingness along with his lover's body, and disappeared. 

I returned my attention to the wider battle just in time to see Glenn crash into the closed door to the throne room proper, and note the absence of Ozzie. The green fool had escaped, then. Well, not for much longer . . . 

Glenn rubbed his bruised shoulder and—more sensibly—tried the door handle. 

Ozzie had clearly remodeled the throne room since the last time I'd been in there, some five or six years before. The switches were new, for one thing . . . but at least he hadn't added an exit. He was going to have to stand and fight here, instead of running again. 

"Magus! You lied when you said you wanted to create a world of evil! You used me!" 

Of course, Ozzie's conveniently selective memory hadn't retrieved the information that he'd used me, too, when it had suited his purposes. 

"Oh, how dreadful," I said, with a smirk. I was going to enjoy finally smashing the green fool's face in. "Say, can you hear that? The sound of the Black Wind . . ." It wasn't especially loud, but it was . . . concentrated. 

Someone wasn't going to leave this room alive. 

"I can't lose!" Ozzie raved. "What would become of my Mystics? I _must_ win!" 

I sighed softly. The fool would never have believed me if I'd told him that I'd seen the future, and that four hundred years from now, the Mystics were still there. Indeed, they'd survived much longer than the Zealish researchers who had created their construct ancestors would ever have expected. 

I considered spells. There were several ways past Ozzie's barrier, although they all took a little while to cast . . . but I'd barely had the chance to get started when Lucca shot one of the switches and took the floor out from under all of our feet. I was sufficiently startled by the fact that one of Ozzie's traps had actually _worked_ that I wasn't able to fly back up before the opening in the ceiling slammed shut again. 

Lucca raised her hands as if to say, "Sorry, I didn't know!" and we all began the slog back up through the fort's deserted rooms. 

Ozzie had evidently dispelled his barrier when we had fallen, because he was free of it when we got back to the throne room. 

" _Never!_ You will _never_ defeat me!" 

As I may have mentioned, I've always had a certain amount of respect for cats, which was why I wasn't particularly surprised when a half-grown tabby walked in, flipped the rightmost switch in the array on Ozzie's wall, and walked out again. 

Cats are the only animals other than monkeys and some monsters that can learn things by just watching someone do them, you know. They're actually quite smart—smarter than Ozzie was, anyway. 

"N . . . no! Not _that_ switch!" 

I drifted up to the edge of the hole that had appeared under Ozzie and looked down, but the angle his head was lying at left no doubt that he was dead. 

_A victim of his own stupidity and my edict that felines weren't to be harmed,_ I mused. _How . . . fitting._

And so, my old empire among the Mystics was gone for good, destroyed by the very hands that had built it in the first place. For a moment, I felt oddly . . . adrift. 

"The past is dead," I murmured. "It was all just a dream . . ." 

* * *

"I don't know how you can look at that stuff all the time without giving yourself a headache." 

We were back at the End of Time, and I'd taken up my old position by the railing again, but for some reason, Lucca wouldn't leave me alone. Just then, she was sitting on the ground beside me, with her back to the rail, and refusing to shut up. 

I shrugged. "It did at first, when I was trying too hard to fit it into some kind of familiar pattern." I don't know why I answered her—I suppose I was feeling bored. 

"And you _kept_ looking at it?" 

The only reply I could offer her was another shrug. " . . . Why do you insist on talking to me?" I asked after a moment. 

"Because I want to understand you. As a trained mage, you're kind of my opposite number—someone who deals with magic the way I deal with science and technology—and I'd like it if you made more sense to me than the Nu . . . who don't make any sense at all as far as I can see!" 

I snorted. "No one truly understands the Nu—not even the people in Zeal who built them. But you haven't answered my question. There are other mages available to you. Gaspar, for instance." 

"I tried that," Lucca admitted. "He won't stay awake. And . . ." 

I waited. 

" _Someone_ should try to talk to you, and it seems like I'm the only one interested. Isolating yourself the way you do isn't healthy—even I know that, and I'm not exactly one of the world's great social butterflies. You know, Frog's worried about you too." 

Now, _that_ was completely unexpected. "I can't imagine why," I said after I shook off the shock. 

Lucca chuckled. "I think it's been a bit embarrassing for him to find out that the Source of All Evil he's hated all his life is just a proud, lonely man with a tragic history who isn't even really an enemy." 

"I am _not_ 'lonely'," I said through gritted teeth. 

"That's just because you've driven yourself so far around the bend that you don't even realize it anymore." 

"Being _lonely_ requires one to accept that it's possible to _not_ be alone, and I've eliminated that possibility from my life. A living weapon can't afford friendships." But my hands tightened on the railing at which I stood. 

"A weapon? Is that what you think of yourself as?" 

The railing made a tortured sound and bent under my grip. "For three-quarters of my life, I've focussed all my energies on defeating Lavos. What does that suggest to you?" 

"That you're half-crazy from treating yourself like some kind of robot," Lucca replied promptly. "When's the last time you did something just because you wanted to, without bringing Lavos into the picture?" 

The silence stretched like taffy, because I couldn't think of a single instance in which I had behaved as she'd described. I'd acted a few times out of feelings of obligation not directly related to Lavos, as when I'd spared Glenn in the Denadoro Mountains, but to do something just because I _wanted_ to, and for no other reason? Not since I was a child. 

"That's what I thought," Lucca said as the silence was beginning to become oppressive. "This is going to be harder than I thought, but don't worry—we'll ease you into acting like a human being again." 

_You have no right!_ Metal screeched and broke as I tore the railing asunder. The wounds inside me were bad enough without someone else poking and prodding at them . . . 

. . . but what if this was what I had lost, what I needed to achieve my ultimate goal?

Schala, was this what you wanted me to see? 

A twisted section of bar metal had come loose in my hand, and I flung it into the dark, writhing nothingness beyond the platform, angry at my momentary loss of self-control, and feeling the ache of overstrained muscles. Venting my emotions where others could see them . . . I needed to be stronger, but instead I seemed to be becoming weaker. 

"Magus?" 

"What is it _now_?" I snapped. 

" . . . Tell me about the Nu. You said they were built in Zeal, and yet we ran into some of them millions of years before Zeal even existed, in Ayla's time." 

I sighed in exasperation. "Most of the Nu you saw in Zeal were built there, but those were not the first Nu. The Nu are constructs—created beings—but we don't know _who_ created them. Zeal's first Guru of Life reverse-engineered them because he found them useful: none of the other artificial beings created in Zeal could be reprogrammed repeatedly without driving them insane. The most common theory is that the original Nu were created by a civilization that died out before humanity ever arose. Or some samples may have slipped through a temporal discontinuity during the Fall of Zeal and landed in the distant past, although the ramifications of that . . . " 

"Ugh. Just thinking about it makes my head hurt," Lucca admitted. "I think we'll stick with them having been created by the Reptites. Hey, isn't that the Epoch? Crono and the others must be done with the Sun Stone. I guess that means it's finally time to go after Lavos." She swallowed visibly. 

"I don't think you have to worry about being one of the ones chosen to go on that particular journey," I said. I still didn't understand why we couldn't leave the End of Time in groups larger than three, but the others all insisted on adhering to that rule religiously, and it didn't seem to be just because getting more than three people in the Epoch meant sitting in each others' laps. 

"No, Crono will probably want to take Marle and Frog," Lucca said. Then she swallowed again and eyed me nervously. 

"If that expression on your face is meant to indicate that you don't think I'll let myself be left behind, you're quite correct," I said dryly, and watched her blanch. 

"Um. Let me talk to them first. Please?" 

To my surprise, Lucca wasn't the only one who wanted me to go along on the final expedition. Robo spoke up immediately in support of the idea, but it was Glenn's words that clinched it. 

"Crono, if he does not go, nor will I." 

I wasn't the only one who stared at him in surprise, but it was me whose gaze those guileless amphibian eyes returned. 

"Thou hast never refused to fight me, although 'twas never an action that offered thee any benefit," the frog told me. "How could I refuse thee the chance to face thy nemesis in turn? 'Twould not be honourable. Thou'lt go—in my place, if there's no other way." 

Crono frowned. "All right," he said slowly. "It'll be me, Frog, and Magus then. Sorry, Marle." 

"Just come back in one piece," the girl said firmly. "That's all that matters." 

"You go now?" That was the other blonde, the proto- human—Ayla, or whatever her name was. 

"No sense in waiting around," Crono said. "Wish us luck." 

"If we win, luck will have nothing to do with it," I said sharply, before turning to head for the Epoch. 

Crono took us back to the frozen, empty world of the Fall of Zeal. I didn't question his action, because I would have made the same decision. The Black Omen might cast its shadow throughout time, but stopping it where it had begun offered . . . a pleasant symmetry. 

The Epoch sidled up to the open deck that was the most accessible area of the Omen . . . and was snatched away by the wind. I might have been able to fly across the gap, but it would have been difficult in such turbulent air, so I waited for the second, successful attempt. 

The wind snatched the Epoch away again the moment we were securely on board the floating Ocean Palace, however, and Glenn made a distressed sound in his throat. 

"Have we a way of returning, should it be required?" 

Crono smiled. "I borrowed Lucca's remote control. Stop worrying." 

I led the way toward the door that looked like it should give us access to the interior of the floating building. Oddly, no such portal had appeared on the plans with which I had become familiar while playing my role of Prophet. The structure might appear superficially the same, but it had clearly mutated . . . which meant that I had no idea what to expect inside. 

I was prepared to blast the doors down if necessary, but they weren't even locked, and the guards placed on them took but a moment to eliminate. The interior, while it still did somewhat resemble the building whose construction I'd been supervising, seemed to owe a lot more to the architectural styles of the distant future than it did to those of Zeal, which was puzzling. 

I didn't have much time to think about it, though. We hadn't even moved beyond the first room when the initial attack came. 

Perhaps I should have expected the image that appeared in front of us . . . but the truth is that I hadn't expected Lavos to bother retaining control of my mother when there was a better host available. Her presence actually awoke some hope in me. Had Schala escaped after all? 

"Fools! Haven't you learned your lesson?! We are immortal! We shall live forever with Lavos, who devours this planet even as he sleeps! Draining this planet's power, Lavos will rule the world in a mere 14000 years!" 

"And I thought _I_ took the long view," I muttered as I took out my scythe. 

The frog gave me a peculiar look—perhaps he'd thought I had no sense of humour—before fixing his eyes once more on my mother's image. 

"The Black Omen is a path which leads to Lavos," she was saying. "It is a shrine which provides us with limitless power. As long as the mighty one reigns, your dreams are hopeless!" 

What she summoned then, with a casual gesture of her hand, was one of the ugliest monsters I had ever seen. 

_There is no such thing as limitless power,_ I thought as I spoke the opening words of the Dark Matter spell— I'd recently recovered the ability to cast it, although it still drained me more than it should have. _Haven't you learned anything?_ But no, she wouldn't, because Lavos . . . couldn't. 

I was starting to see that, for all its overwhelming power, the world's nemesis was quite . . . well, perhaps not stupid. "Overconfident" fits well enough, I suppose. Very overconfident, if it had truly thought that ugly creature would defeat us. Before our combined might, it went down in seconds. 

"That can't be it," Crono said as he wiped his sword clean. 

I shook my head. "We're only in an antechamber. There will be more—much more." 

Given what we had to slog through after that, I would have been far happier if I'd turned out to be a false prophet once again. Dozens of rooms empty of anything except bloodthirsty constructs and enraged monsters. Individually, they weren't all that difficult to kill, but there were so many of them that we began to tire regardless, and by the time we reached the two Nu who had found themselves an improbable niche near the middle of the building, we were all blood-spattered and irritable. 

The Nu's remark that we still had a long journey ahead angered me, and I moved away from Crono and the frog a bit so as to avoid taking my temper out on them. What was this ridiculous building supposed to do, anyway? Wear us down? As an advertisement for the power of Lavos, it was distinctly unimpressive, to my mind. Unimpressive, but frustrating. I was tired of wasting time on these small fry. 

"Magus?" 

And why had that damned stupid frog followed me over here? 

"What?" I snapped. 

"Thou know'st—'tis likely we will find thy mother, deeper within." 

"And?" I could not understand what he was trying to get at. 

"Wilt thou be able to fight her?" 

"I don't see why not." 

The frog's throat worked. "But . . . thy _mother_ . . ." 

"You're expecting sentiment? From _me_?" Laughable. Completely laughable. 

. . . Was that something else that I'd lost? 

"Perhaps 'twas foolish of me, at that. And yet, thou needs must possess some fond memory of times long ago . . ." 

I shrugged carelessly. "Must I? I can barely remember a time when that woman and I were anything more than strangers who happened to be related by blood. After my father died, she was barely willing to look at me. Schala is the only true family I have left, and she is the one who lives in the few fond memories I retain, not Queen Aleana Zeal." 

_Schala . . ._ Where was she now? Safe? Or . . . 

"Hey, you two, come on!" Crono had apparently finished whatever he'd been doing with the Nu, because he was waving us impatiently forward. 

Portions of what we passed through after that point bore a closer resemblance to the original Ocean Palace, but that did not reassure me. Teleportation devices, corridors, a long elevator shaft . . . After what seemed like forever, we reached a long and bizarre hall with something familiar at the end of it. 

Crono, however, had barely stepped through the door when he ran to our left, staring at a glass tube and the body floating inside it. 

"What sorcery is this?!" Glenn murmured. 

I shrugged. "More clones, I expect. They serve various purposes in advanced spells—I've used them myself." 

"Thou may'st be sanguine regarding the matter— thou'rt not represented!" And much to my amusement, Glenn made another of those froglike, throaty sounds. He was right, though—there were images here of Crono, Marle, Lucca, Ayla, Robo (how did one clone something that wasn't alive?), and Glenn himself, but none of me. Was I not supposed to be here, then? That idea surprised a genuine smile out of me. _Ah, Mother, I was right: you don't know me at all._

"Let's stop wasting time," I said, and began to stride ahead along the walkway, while the frog pried Crono away from his unmoving image. 

At the end of the walkway was the Mammon Machine, looking much the worse for wear. I was not at all surprised when my mother's image appeared in front of it. 

"Behold, my pretties! Destiny, in its most brutal form." 

_And what would you know about the brutality of destiny?_ I wondered, disgusted. The cold clarity of deep anger was beginning to wrap itself around me, although it seemed more fragile than I remembered . . . but did that signify a change in the nature of that emotional state, or just a change in me? 

"All the dreams that might have been. All the happiness, and sorrow, you might have experienced. Gone forever!!! For you there will be no tomorrow." 

_If I must die to achieve my goals, then let me die! Does she truly think we're here to save our own hides?_

"The Black Omen transcends time and space, waiting for Lavos to awaken!" 

And did she think we'd forgotten that, or that _she_ was going to forget it if she didn't remind herself? Was her mind that close to dissolution? 

"Destiny has led you here. And here you shall rest forever, unless you can defeat me and smash the Omen!" 

Suddenly, there was a crack in my detachment. She truly was close to dissolution, I realized, but she was _fighting_ it, or trying to. If there had been a little more of her left . . . but we'd come too late for that. 

_So be it,_ I told myself, but it was . . . more difficult. 

"Come, dear friends. Perhaps I can persuade Lavos to share his dreams with you! Did I say dreams? I meant his eternal nightmare!" 

The fight left my heart unexpectedly heavy, even though, at the end of it, she didn't seem to be hurt. Indeed, she seemed to be in gleeful good shape when she threw us to the battered Mammon Machine. 

That second fight left us all panting—the Machine's new defense mechanisms were . . . unexpectedly brutal. 

I wiped sweat from my brow and emptied three vials of ether while Crono rubbed tonic into a burn and the frog checked the edge of the Masamune for nicks. 

"Do you two want to rest?" the red-head asked. 

I shook my head. "We keep going. We need to end this." _I_ needed to end this. 

The final teleportation device placed us impossibly high up—higher above the ground than I had ever been, even when I had resided in Zeal. If we had been alone, I might even have spared a few instants to memorize the view . . . but there was another here. A familiar other. 

_Mother . . ._

"You cretins . . . I plan to live with Lavos, and control the universe forever." 

"Idiots," I cut in, having had more than enough of her speeches. "Nothing can live forever. Zeal . . ." I shook my head slightly. Perhaps it had not been immortal, but my home would have survived longer if it had not been for the foolish decisions we had all made . . . 

"A pitiful woman, duped by Lavos," I added, feeling an ancient fury—hot, not cold—well up as I stared into my mother's eyes. The figure in front of me had suddenly become representative of everything I had lost, and everything . . . Did I have anything left to lose, besides my life? Nothing came to mind. I had given it all up to be in that place, at that time. 

"I, myself, will bring an end to all this," I finished harshly. _After all, I am the last heir of Zeal, unless Schala should be found . . . who has a better right?_

"Prophet!" And even yet, she didn't recognize me . . . or refused to admit it. "You are doomed. I haven't forgotten what you did at the Ocean Palace. You will now forfeit your life." 

I never broke eye contact with her. _My life was forfeit long ago._

I was not surprised to see her transform herself—or see Lavos transform her—into a monstrous creature, but the battle which ensued was . . . difficult. I could not bring myself to wield magic against her, and each swing of my scythe seemed to cut me as well as her. 

_Glenn was right,_ I realized. _I should not be here . . ._ Even if I couldn't consciously retrieve any memories of the warmth that might once have existed between us, something inside me was revolting against this. 

It was disconcerting, when the battle ended, to realize that she hadn't even left a corpse behind. It robbed me of any kind of sense of closure. Nothing left . . . nothing to mourn. Or to spit on, as the case might turn out to be when I got my thoughts back in order. But the world was already pulsing and turning blue . . . Lavos was coming, and I had to do my best to pull myself back together, although it already felt like we had been fighting forever. 

The first thing I did, when my nemesis had fully materialized, was swing my scythe at its beak with all the power of the twisted emotions raging inside me. There was no flash of light this time, but the blade sank in deep and left blood behind when I withdrew it. 

_Pull yourself together, fool,_ I told myself as something materialized off to my left. 

What followed was initially more of a test of endurance than one of fighting skill. It was enough to make me suspect that Lavos had a sense of humour, because the whole sequence couldn't have been anything other than a joke. I withheld my magic, using my scythe against the shelled creature and its pathetic auxiliaries. 

Then bolts of fire suddenly rained down on us from above, and I realized that the joke was over. Lavos had finally gotten serious . . . which meant that I would as well. 

Four times in rapid sequence, I invoked my Dark Matter spell while Crono and the frog attacked with their swords. Then we all fell to our knees, gasping, as Lavos shuddered and died. 

Or did it? The Black Wind was still thundering around us, and I could sense . . . 

"Can it be over?" the frog asked aloud. 

"Not yet," I said grimly. "We'll get to the bottom of this, Lavos . . ." 

I drained an elixir before following the frog in ducking through the opening left behind by Lavos' vanished head . . . only to find myself at the edge of a sharp drop into what appeared to be a cavern. I frowned. Surely, the creature's shell couldn't enclose so much space. 

" . . . No turning back now," I muttered, and floated down the drop. 

Then, on the far side of the cavern, we found a space that seemed to bear the trappings of the future, just as parts of the Black Omen had . . . and I understood, at least a little, what was happening here. 

Lavos came from some other world where culture had followed the paths of Lucca's science. Its abilities were very likely unfathomable . . . but even if, as the legends of Zeal claimed, Lavos had been responsible for initially awakening magical ability in human beings, I doubt it had much experience in dealing with magic unleashed. 

That knowledge gave me . . . something of a second wind. 

"Finally," I said. "You have met your match, Lavos!" 

We battled against the huge metal statue-creature as we had against the outer shell . . . only to discover that it was itself yet another shell. 

The creature within was . . . surprisingly human in shape, truth be told, at least as much of it as could be seen through its heavy armour. The Black Wind swirled violently around it at hurricane speeds as it watched us unblinkingly with its single huge eye. 

"This be evil!" Glenn proclaimed, his voice cracking slightly. "Indeed! This thing doth possess the vitality of all living creatures . . . It hath harvested DNA from animals, only to further its own evolution! And whilst sleeping, to boot! It . . . it is too much to bear . . . We have been reared like animals! Our lives have been for naught . . ." The frog's shoulders slumped. 

My eyes narrowed. "We were created only to be harvested. All people . . . and all living things . . ." Myself, Crono, the frog . . . even Schala . . . The thought outraged me. _We are not heads of wheat, every one the same, all waiting for the reaper's scythe!_ "It's over for you," I snarled. "Your life ends here!" 

The creature—the core of Lavos—might not have understood my words, but it clearly picked up on the tone of voice, because it flung its hands wide, releasing two little floating creatures, and . . . reality fluctuated. _More fool's tricks,_ I thought, the words of the Dark Matter spell already on my lips. _Do you honestly think that those_ matter _at this point? If so, you've been harvesting the wrong genes!_

By this time, the thing had few surprises left for us. We discovered quickly that magic seemed to heal one of the floating bits, and so Glenn took it out with his sword. That killing the central figure was not enough to truly destroy it was . . . annoying, but not insurmountable. I cast until my hand was weary from pointing and my lips were on the verge of blistering, and . . . finally . . . it died, evaporating into nothingness with a thunderous roar and a flash that made us all shield our eyes. 

We were left floating in empty blueness, exhausted, the Black Wind reduced to a murmur. Then, suddenly, it began to pick up again. I frowned, forced myself to concentrate on what my subtler senses told me . . . and swore in High Zeala. 

"We need to get out of here _now_ ," I snapped at the other two. "This space is closing in on itself." 

"Closing . . . in?" Crono panted. 

I settled for bringing my hands together to make a descriptive gesture. The frog and the red-head stumbled to their feet and followed me to the flickering time-gap just below the opening which led out of Lavos' shell. 

"That . . . doth not look promising," Glenn said as we watched the proto-Gate vanish for a moment, then reappear. 

"I don't see that we have a choice," I replied grimly. "Crono . . ." 

He already had the Gate Key out. For a moment, it seemed as though it wasn't going to work. Then the Gate steadied and expanded to permit us entry. 

Reaching the End of Time seemed to take forever, and the Gate spilled us out roughly instead of releasing us in the same positions as we'd entered in. I was able to turn my fall into a roll and come to my feet again, but Crono and the frog weren't so lucky: Gaspar's lamppost got in their way. 

"Art thou in one piece?" Glenn asked his friend. 

"Ugh . . . I think so." 

Gaspar cleared his throat. "You should realize that the Gates will soon close, now that Lavos is dead. I would suggest leaving, before you become stranded here. While your presence _would_ make this place more congenial, I suspect that most of you would become bored rather quickly." 

"We've still got the Epoch," Lucca pointed out, "so that shouldn't be a worry. We can spare a little time for a celebration before we all return to our own lives." 

"Yes, but not _here_ ," Marle said, scanning the End of Time with distaste. "Let's go back to Millennial Guardia. My Dad will be glad to throw us whatever kind of celebration we want." 

"Why not?" Crono said with a grin. 

"Ayla think, good idea!" 

The others moved toward the platform containing the Time Gates, but I stayed where I was. 

Now that the scramble to escape Lavos' den was over, I was feeling a bit . . . odd, but I couldn't seem to put a finger on why. It was as though, instead of beginning a flight by pushing off the ground in the normal way, I had stepped unexpectedly over the edge of a cliff—the hollow sensation I'd felt when Ozzie had died, but magnified a thousand times. 

"Hey, Magus, wake up!" Someone tugged at my cloak, and I turned sharply, hand raised . . . 

Lucca. Of course. Not even the frog would have had the nerve. 

"You _are_ coming with us, aren't you?" 

Glenn was waiting too, I discovered, standing beside the warp. And Crono and Marle. And even Robo and Ayla, to whom I'd barely spoken a word the whole time I'd been here. All of them were eyeing me with . . . was that actually concern? 

I considered making a break for the portal that led to the Fall of Zeal. I still needed to find Schala . . . but would I be any good to her like this? What was wrong with me? 

In the end, I let myself be herded along. For the time being, until I figured this out, it didn't matter where or when I was, so going with them . . . would do. 

* * *

Lucca took me to her home. That surprised me, but her parents didn't seem to be bothered by her bringing a strange man back with her and putting him in one of their guest rooms, and I was too tired to protest. The last battle with Lavos was catching up with me, and elixir is a poor substitute for rest. 

I slept for what felt like days, but was probably closer to eighteen hours, and awoke still feeling . . . empty. But I didn't have much time for introspection before Lucca shot into the room. 

"Oh, you're finally awake! Good. We've got a celebration to go to." 

I silently reached for my boots. Nor did I protest as Lucca towed me to the grounds of the Millennial Fair. I didn't even bother to raise my hood, ignoring the stares I got from . . . well, just about everyone. Nobody protested my presence, however, and that was enough to wake a touch of grim humour in me. After all, the fair _was_ meant to celebrate the anniversary of my defeat, wasn't it? 

Lucca led me to the area in the back into which the Gate opened. It was almost sunset by then, and low-slanting rays were dying the ground red. 

"I brought lunch—well, I guess it would be closer to suppertime by now, but you haven't eaten yet today, have you?" 

I didn't feel as though it were worth the effort of answering, so I didn't bother. 

"Damnit, Magus! You're really starting to worry me, you know. Lavos is dead! You've done it! You should be happy, and instead, you're moping around like . . . like . . ." She waved her hands, clearly at a loss for words. "I really wish you'd at least get yourself together enough to be nasty to me the way you normally are!" 

And suddenly, it all made sense. "Lucca . . . if you woke up some morning knowing that you had explored everything about the world, that there were no more scientific discoveries left to make and your life's work was complete even though you still had many more years left to live, how would you feel?" 

"That isn't possible—there's too _much_ of the world for me to ever . . . _Oh._ " 

I smiled thinly. "Exactly. I wasn't so wise in my choice of a life's work as you have been. I believe I may be . . . a bit in shock. I'll recover soon enough." Indeed, I could almost feel my old self seeping back as I continued, "There's still one person who may need my help . . . someone that I never should have abandoned, even though she begged me to." My hand found the steel crescent at my hip and traced its outline. 

" . . . You mean Schala, don't you?" 

I nodded. "I still don't understand what happened to her—why we didn't find her, or even a trace of her presence, on the Black Omen. Lavos wouldn't have killed her, not given her value as a potential host. For the same reason, it wouldn't have let her die, if it had been able to figure out how to prevent it. But at the same time, we found no evidence of her at the Last Village. I need to know where she is, what she's doing . . . if she's safe." For some reason, I felt as though I owed this girl . . . a little honesty. Call it a fair return for her having supported my desire to be one of the three who rid the world of Lavos for good. 

"Whoa, there! You don't have to convince me. If it was my sister we were talking about, I'd feel exactly the same way. You'll be going back to 12000BC, then." 

"Yes." 

"Well, now that that's decided, let's eat!" 

There was no raw meat, of course—I hadn't mentioned that quirk of my metabolism to any of them, preferring to go off alone for my meals—but what Lucca had brought with her was well-prepared and flavourful, and . . . well, I'd probably get my fill of raw meat over the next few years. The Last Village would be scrabbling along at subsistence level for quite some time. 

The stars were out by the time we'd finished. 

"Lucca . . . I promised to teach you about magic, didn't I?" I said idly. She might not have been Schala, but it felt almost right to be sitting here beside her this way, conversing. I suppose her insistence had worn away some of the rough edges of my usual misanthropy. 

Lucca smiled. "If you're suggesting that you might stay here for a while on my account . . . don't. Schala needs you far more than I do." 

"I was just thinking . . . if you truly do want to know more about magic, ask Melchior for his help," I said as we watched the light show at the main fairgrounds. "He's here, in your time period, and unlike me, he's accustomed to teaching. I'd have made a terrible instructor—I don't have the patience for it." 

"Mmm. I might just do that." A pause, while more light fountained up from the fairground. "The others must be almost here." 

I have never been one for good-byes, and so I stood alone while the others said theirs—indeed, I meant to slip away when no one was paying attention, but eventually gave up in frustration and walked into the Gate right after the frog had left. 

I stepped from the warmth of a midsummer's evening to the bright light of day and snow-dusted gravel that crunched under my boots: the commons of the Last Village. People were staring, and I turned, intending to leave, but there was a gentle tug at the hem of my cloak. 

" _Mraow?_ " 

"Alfador?" I crouched down to examine the cat, who had sunk his claws into my clothing and seemed disinclined to let go any time soon. He was a Royal Silver, certainly, but . . . 

Impatiently, the cat butted at my gloved hand. _Imperious, aren't we?_ I thought, amused, and began to stroke him. 

"That was the Prince's cat," said the old man who was the headman of the village, approaching to within five feet or so of us. "He seems to have taken a liking to you, though. Good. The boy who rescued him from Algetty says that the poor creature hasn't been eating right." 

"Pining away for want of his master, perhaps," I said, scooping Alfador into my arms and straightening up. My cat purred, squirming his way into what was apparently a more comfortable position, and fell asleep even as I savoured the sensation of warm, living fur against my bare skin. 

So improbable that such a small, fragile creature would survive, where so many others had died. Even less likely that the two of us would be reunited this way, despite Time and circumstance. Perhaps Fate had done me a good turn for once. It was almost enough to give me hope that things _could_ come out right—somewhere, someday. 

"That voice . . . You were the Queen's Prophet!" the old man said. 

I shrugged. "While the guise was of use to me, yes. But tell me: has there been any news at all of Princess Schala?" 

"Nothing, since the Fall of Zeal. All we know was that she was in the Ocean Palace . . . but I suspect you know that much as well, do you not? You were that man who appeared in the night, then vanished again before I could talk to you." 

" . . . Yes." I didn't think there was any harm in admitting it now. 

"Will you be staying with us?" 

I shook my head. "I don't think that would be wise." 

"If it's because you were of the Enlightened—" 

"I'm aware that you haven't been distinguishing between Enlightened and Earthbound—or even between human and construct," I said. "However, none of the Enlightened Ones who have settled here with you retain much of their magic, do they?" 

The old man clearly deserved his place as village head, because I could see his mind racing. "Well, some of them can light candles or heal bruises . . . They claim they need the power of the Mammon Machine, or at least the Sun Stone, to do anything more." 

"That's because the fools let their natural abilities atrophy," I said. There is a profound difference between using one's own magic and drawing on power that comes from outside—rather like the difference between a fire, which produces light, and a lens, which focuses something else's. My life in the sixth century had forced me to learn to be a fire, but most of the Enlightened found life as a lens to be easier . . . which meant that they were now crippled. "I've never depended on outside power sources. Everything I had before Zeal fell, I have still." I swung the arm that didn't have a cat sleeping on it in a casual gesture that, in concert with a few murmured words, created a bubble of warm, snowless air around me. "You don't need me here, reminding your Enlightened of what they've lost—and your Earthbound of what they can never have." 

"I would hope that we wouldn't be so petty," the old man said. "But if you do not wish to stay, I won't attempt to keep you here. Still, I must wonder . . . what are you going to do? Why did you come back here?" 

"That's a personal matter," I said gruffly. 

"You're going to search for the princess." 

It wasn't a question, but I nodded anyway. 

"But if you know the future . . ." 

I smiled thinly. "Only the Queen was gullible enough to believe that. The future is in constant flux. Even if you've been there and seen what will happen, your intervention in the present can change things. Human hands, human will . . . that's what shapes the future. Nothing is inevitable." 

The old man's eyebrows had been slowly rising as I spoke, and when I was done, he gave me a firm nod. "I find that reassuring, especially coming from someone who should know. We'll build our future with our own hands, then . . . and I wish you the best of luck in seeking yours, sir Prophet." 

"I'm not exactly fond of that label," I said, still stroking Alfador. I still didn't want to be "Janus" here, but . . . "Call me Magus." Presumptuous it might be, but it was what I was.


	3. III.  The Hidden Truth

It was not quite five years after the defeat of Lavos that I crossed the last section off the crude map that I'd drawn on the wall of my almost-equally-crude stone hut at the North Cape, and stood staring at it for a long moment before shaking my head and bending down to pick up Alfador, who had his claws sunken into my trousers and was meowing for attention. 

I had combed the entire world of 12000BC, diving deep into the freezing oceans and examining every inch of land, every ice floe and rocky islet, and found no trace of Schala, alive or dead. 

Whatever had happened at the Ocean Palace that day, she hadn't died. Not then and there. That was reassuring in its way . . . but there was no telling where or when Lavos had flung her. It could have been anywhere from Ayla's era in 65000000BC to the distant future when the stars went out. 

One thing was certain: I wasn't going to find her by staying in this time and place. It was time to leave. 

I turned around slowly, raking the hut that had been my home in this era with one last, firm glance. It wasn't very impressive, really. The walls were lumpy, made of crudely stacked fieldstone that I'd fused into seamlessness with a fire spell. It had taken a lot of work to make the hearth draw properly, and there was no true door, just a curtain leading to a sort of windbreak tunnel that I normally blocked off with a boulder at the far end. That was gone now, though—I'd told the headman of the village, now appropriately named Land's End, that he could send someone here tomorrow to haul away anything they considered to be of use. The bed was a pile of worn furs—I'd swapped an Earthbound woman in the village some salvaged pottery for her tanning skills—and the remaining furnishings consisted of a pair of rocks that I used as chair and stool, and some shelves built into the far wall which, at the moment, held only a dented metal pot I used for melting snow. The walls bore complex magical notations scribbled in charcoal, and a small section of the packed-dirt floor, right in front of the hearth, had been covered with a carefully designed mosaic circle of white and black stones. 

There was nothing here that I would regret leaving. I'd made sure of that. 

Alfador purred as my fingers found just the right spot behind the angle of his jaw, and I smiled. He was one of the few things that had made my life here bearable—him, and my purpose. There was no question of leaving him behind, of course, although I did worry about what might happen to him in a more populated era where I might have to fight something more dangerous than just the weather. A small, helpless creature, utterly dependent . . . utterly priceless. 

Still holding him, I made certain that the fire was out, then took my place at the center of the mosaic circle. On the days when storms tore at the cape and I'd been unable to leave the hut to actively continue my search, I'd worked on refining what I'd perceived in my travels aboard the Epoch into an actual time-travel spell. Six months ago, I'd succeeded . . . or at least, I thought I had. What I was about to do here would be the final test. 

I extinguished the etheric light I'd been using to see by, and intoned the first phrase, feeling the distinct jolt as my power began to drain into the spell—so far, so good. My right hand danced through the air as the circle under my feet began to glow. 

The second phrase made the light rise to obscure my surroundings, leaving me standing in the midst of a column of blinding radiance. Alfador made a soft noise and tried to hide his head under my arm, but I kept a firm grip on him. 

The third phrase sent me to my knees, gasping and shielding my eyes, as power drained from me like water and the light brightened to the point where I couldn't bear to look at it. 

When I could see again, I was kneeling, not on a packed dirt floor, but in the midst of twisting dimness—still familiar, although I hadn't seen it in years. 

"We made it," I told Alfador. "This is the End of Time." 

It had been an exhausting transit, however. My magical reserves were very low, and I could feel the beginning of a drain-headache throbbing at my temples. It would be some time before we could leave again. 

Knowing that, I turned slowly, scanning the area until I saw a faint light that could only come from Gaspar's lamppost. I walked toward it, trying very hard not to think about what I was—or wasn't—standing on. 

It moved closer more quickly than anything that had initially seemed so far away had a right to, and a few moments later, I was vaulting over the low railing and onto the platform. Gaspar awoke with a start as my boots struck stone. 

"Prince Janus! This is a surprise. I never thought I would see any of you again." 

"And yet, Lucca kept the Epoch," I observed—I'd seen it streaking through the skies, one morning not long after my return to the Fall of Zeal, searching for I knew not what. 

"Only for a little while," the old man replied. Then he froze for an instant. "You came here . . . under your own power? I wouldn't have thought it possible." 

"It wasn't easy," I said, then added, "If you're viewing my recent past, then you know why I'm here." 

"You seek Princess Schala," the old man confirmed. "Prince Janus . . . many times, I have attempted to trace her away from the Ocean Palace disaster, but the thread of her existence vanishes there. It is as though she somehow managed to . . . leave time." 

I frowned. " _Leave time?_ You mean that she came here?" 

Gaspar shook his head. "If she had come here, I would still be able to trace her thread. No, my belief is that she somehow fell into the Darkness Beyond Time, the place where potentialities that have been erased by time travellers go. If that is what happened, I would not be able to tell where or when she emerged again—that place is not accessible from here." 

"Don't lie to me," I snapped. "You've already proven that you can see all of Time from here." 

"I do not lie. _Yes_ , I can see all of Time from here—would you like me to teach you the spell?—but I can't pay _attention_ to all of it at once. Without a thread to follow or at least some notion of where to start, I am reduced to searching in the same way you would: one period and location at a time." 

Yes, that did describe what I was now looking at, didn't it? _One period and location at a time . . ._ How dared the universe do this to me?! Hadn't I already suffered enough, striven enough? 

I smiled bitterly. _And why am I suddenly expecting the universe to be fair? I know very well that it isn't._ I would just have to choose the time periods and locations that I would search wisely, that was all . . . 

"Your task is not as impossible as it may seem at first," Gaspar said. "You don't have to search alone. There are others who would help you, if you gave them the chance." 

My hands stilled on Alfador's back. ". . . Lucca," I said slowly. 

"She is one of them, yes." 

"You're suggesting a trans-temporal conspiracy to find my sister." I shook my head. Ridiculous on the face of it, and yet . . . what other choice did I have? 

The old man smiled. "Do you have a better idea? Restore yourself and go. I think you will find that Lucca is quite happy to see you." 

Relying on others . . . I still hated the idea, even after my brief cooperation with Crono and his friends. I couldn't trust others to make the right decisions, to stay focused on a task . . . but for Schala's sake . . . 

I went over to the crystal globe that rested on a table in the far corner. I still didn't understand how it worked—I'd never seen another device quite like it—but laying my hand on it instantly removed my fatigue and refilled my magic reserves. Even Alfador purred and stretched. 

"What am I going to do with you?" I asked him, with a sigh. I was going to need to re-draw my magic circle, and while I'd brought charcoal and chalk along for that eventuality, it was going to be difficult to do while holding a cat. I couldn't put him down—although I would normally have trusted him to stay with me, he did have the typical feline desire to investigate new surroundings, and the fencing that edged the platform hadn't been intended to prevent an inquisitive cat from leaving. If he wandered off into the twisting darkness, I might never find him again. 

In the end, I scribbled a smaller circle, a barrier, with the charcoal, and dropped him in the middle of it. He tried to walk out, bounced off air, tested the edge with a paw, and gave me a miffed look before he curled up with his nose buried in his flank. 

That drew the tiniest of smiles from me as I crouched down to work on the main circle. 

I was so immersed in what I was doing that when Gaspar said, "That is extraordinary," I jumped a little. 

"Your pardon," the old man said. "I have never had the opportunity to see an advanced shadow-user construct a translocation spell before. The symbolism you're using is so very different from that used in comparable advanced lightning and wind spells that I can barely make heads or tails of what you're doing." 

I raised my eyebrows. "I hope that doesn't mean that you have the same faulty understanding of what shadow magic really is as everyone else I've run into . . . but feel free to study the circle while I'm visiting Lucca." I completed one last curlicued line, and stood up. Rubbing out the edge of Alfador's temporary cage with my foot, I picked up my (sulking) cat and stepped into the middle of the circle. 

This time, I knew what to expect from the spell, and was able to stay on my feet despite the power drain and the brilliant light. Ironic: light from a shadow spell . . . but the spell would never have worked without the power that came from harnessing that opposition. 

Alfador and I emerged into sunset, on a footpath south of the town of Guardia in what I hoped was spring of the year 1005AD by the calendar used there. My cat's head was moving rapidly from side to side, trying to take in all the new sounds and smells that belonged to this barely-tamed wilderness— so different from the carefully cultivated land we'd both been born in. I kept a firm grip on the scruff of his neck as I began to walk southward along the packed-dirt track. I was going to have to make him a collar with a tracking spell in it, I decided—in the era of the Fall of Zeal, he'd been confined to my hut and it hadn't mattered, but if we were going to be leaping through time this way, I needed to arrange things so that I could put him down without risking losing him if he went off to investigate something. 

The big, rambling house hadn't changed much from my few glimpses of its exterior five years ago, and I hesitated only a moment before knocking on the front door. 

"Wha—No, Dad, it's okay, I'll get it." 

I relaxed a bit when I heard that voice—definitely Lucca. So as long as I hadn't mistargeted my spell so badly that I'd landed in a time before we'd met . . . 

"Magus!" 

No, I'd gotten it right. The Lucca who stood in the doorway, staring at me in shock, was clearly a little older than I remembered—she'd filled out a bit—but it was also clear that she recognized me. 

But I was a bit surprised when she grinned and said, "Oh, this is perfect! I've been trying to put the Epoch back together so that I could go look for you, but I didn't take any notes when I disassembled it in the first place, and it looks like some of the parts might have deteriorated in storage—" 

"Wait a moment," I interrupted. "You were going to look for me? Why?" 

"Because I think I may have found a Clue." The capital letter was somehow audible. 

"A—You mean that you've found something that might indicate Schala's whereabouts?!" I asked sharply. Was this . . . hope . . . that I was feeling? 

"Something connected with her, anyway," Lucca said. "It's probably easier to show you than it is to try to explain . . . and anyway, my mom will kill me if I leave you standing on the doorstep any longer—she's always telling me I have to be more polite to guests. Come inside." 

She led me through the house to a large room at the back . . . a workshop of some sort, from the look of it, although I couldn't claim to be very familiar with the trappings of technological research. Still, the scatter of scribbled papers, apparently random spare parts, and failed experiments rotting in the corners reminded me a lot of the Gurus' labs in Zeal. 

Lucca headed for one corner, absently pushed half of a small robot out of the way with her foot, and began working at a metal dial set unobtrusively into the wall. 

"Dad used to use the safe for storing dangerous components, back when I was little, so that I wouldn't get into them," she explained. "We felt it was the safest place for—Here we go." A section of the stonework swung back to reveal a metal-lined cavity containing a small wooden box, which Lucca retrieved and placed on the nearest workbench. Then she removed the lid. 

My hand moved forward, then froze, as I stared at the contents. 

"It isn't Marle's," Lucca said into the silence. "Even if we hadn't been able to set them side-by-side, we would have been able to tell, since it's far less battered. We're ninety-nine percent sure it's authentic, though, which means that it's _got_ to be the pendant Schala had at the Ocean Palace—" 

"It's the real one," I said, somehow keeping my voice from shaking. "I can sense the magical signature of the Dreamstone substrate that the gem conceals, even though it's been drained. But there's something else, as well. It looks like . . . Schala bespelled it." 

"She . . . What kind of spell is it?" 

My mouth tightened as I was forced to answer, "I don't know. My training was concentrated on spells of mass destruction, not magical analysis—I didn't have access to much information on the more delicate magical arts while I was living in 600AD, so I couldn't have studied such matters even if I'd wanted to. The only person in this time period who might be able to tell us anything useful is Melchior . . . Or I could try to take it back to the End of Time with me and question Gaspar, but without knowing what the spell is, I can't be certain that would be safe. Where did you find it?" I added. 

"Tucked into a baby's basket." 

I blinked. "What?" I was getting very tired of being subjected to shock after shock. 

"Well . . . About eight or nine months ago, toward the end of last summer, I'd gone out for a walk with Mini-Robo when I spotted what looked like a fading column of light, out in the woods in the middle of nowhere. I was curious, of course, so I went to have a look. I found a baby, a little girl, in a basket under a tree, with the chain of the pendant around her neck." 

"A . . . baby." My mind was racing . . . but unfortunately it was mostly doing so in circles. There was an obvious way that a baby could be connected with Schala, but then who was the father, and why would she send her child away? 

"Yup. We've been calling her 'Kid'. Not very inspired, I know, but we didn't figure it was our place to give her a proper name. That's going to have to be your job, since you're probably her closest available living relative." 

It was nice to know that I wasn't the only one whose thoughts tended in that direction, but . . . 

"She might have had the pendant for reasons having nothing to do with a blood relationship with Schala," I pointed out. 

"We thought of that, but Marle and I decided she looked too much like your sister for it to be that kind of a coincidence. Even if she is blonde." 

"Has Melchior seen her?" I asked sharply. "He knew my sister almost from the time she was born." 

"No, Melchior isn't . . . He hasn't left that house of his near Medina since the end of the Millennial Fair." 

Decisively, I picked up the pendant and slipped it into one of my cloak's many inner pockets. "I suppose I'll have to go and visit him myself, then, and see if I can persuade him to come back here." 

"Um . . . right now?" 

I snorted. "Not this instant, no. Time travel is tiring. I need a good night's sleep, and I need to think of something to do with Alfador." Who was meowing for attention again. I bent down and scooped him up. 

"We'll keep him for you, if you like." Lucca hesitated a long moment before blurting out, "Would you . . . like to see Kid?" 

"I . . ." Schala's maybe-daughter. _Did_ I want to see her? She wasn't my sister—wasn't the person I'd been single-mindedly searching for these past five years and more. And yet . . . Schala would have wanted me to know her. Would have wanted me to care. Would have wanted me to have something more inside me than fire and ice. 

Was that why I couldn't seem to find Schala, no matter how I searched? Did I, subconsciously, not want to do so, because I was afraid of what she would see in me if we met under circumstances less stressful than those of the Ocean Palace disaster? 

"I . . . suppose I should," I said slowly. 

Lucca laughed. "You sound about as enthusiastic as Crono did when the midwife asked him if he wanted to hold little Leene. Marle came close to getting right up off the bed before they'd finished cleaning her up and whacking him upside the head . . . Oh, that's right, you wouldn't know. They got married a year after you left, and their daughter's about two now. Come on." 

I followed her back through the house, into the main room and then out again along a hallway and into a bedroom where an older woman was watching a small blonde child who sat on the floor, playing with a set of wooden blocks. 

She was smiling at her toys, and that smile . . . I felt something inside me twist. So like, and yet so unlike . . . even their auras were similar, but Kid's had a sunny glow to it, while Schala's had held the softer tones of the moon. 

My sister, I realized slowly, hadn't been a very happy person. During those years I remembered her best, the years of our mother's widowhood and decay, Schala had been trapped between her own compassion and her duty to the throne. She had always wanted very much to do the right thing, but her inability to see a clear path forward had tormented her. 

Kid, on the other hand, knew nothing of such things. For the time being, at least, she only _was_. No worries . . . no sorrows . . . That, I knew, was what Schala would have wanted for her, had she been there. My gentle sister had tried to shield even me as best she had been able, not realizing that the power festering inside me made that a futile task. But Kid wasn't a shadow-element, and this wasn't Zeal. She could let her magic lie fallow all her life, if she chose, even though it was clear that someone had already cast for her the spells that would permit her active use of her power. 

Schala . . . would have wanted me to protect that. That joy, that innocence, that . . . freedom. And I had never been able to resist one of my sister's requests. 

Then I snapped out of my reverie as Alfador squirmed from my lax grip and hopped to the floor, approaching Kid cautiously. She didn't notice him until his outstretched nose brushed her arm. 

She stared at him for a while, forehead wrinkled in puzzlement. Then her face cleared. 

"Ca!" she cried triumphantly, reaching for Alfador's twitching tail. 

If Alfador had realized his peril, he would have backed away immediately, but the only person who had ever dared harm my cat was Dalton, and he ignored Kid's grip on his tail with regal disdain . . . until she bit it, that was. 

Alfador yowled and wrenched himself free, leaving a bit of fur behind. He dove into the shadowy space between my ankles and the hem of my cape and hid there, perhaps now and again peeking out at his tormentor from around the edge of my boot. 

Lucca stifled a giggle. 

"Oh, dear," the older woman said, but she didn't entirely manage to repress her smile. "You must be Janus. I'm Lara, Lucca's mother. I don't recall that we were ever really introduced the last time my daughter brought you here." 

She held out her hand, and I stared at it, bemused, before tentatively extending my own. I didn't correct her on the matter of names, either. "Magus" was still remembered in Guardia, however vaguely, and Kid's life here wouldn't be enhanced by my insistence on maintaining my true identity . . . 

_And when did it become the truth?_ I wondered. I had been born Janus Zeal—Magus was someone I had invented to distance myself from the pain and the memories. When had I chosen to discard my identity so completely? 

Lara's grip was stronger than I had expected—I'd barely noticed the crutches leaning against the wall beside her chair, and her long, full skirt hid her legs and feet completely, so I hadn't realized that her arms were normally responsible for bearing her weight. 

"Do you think Kid really is your niece?" she asked pleasantly enough. 

"She appears to resemble my sister quite closely," I admitted. "Although that doesn't constitute proof." 

"Then . . . well, I just wanted to say that we'll understand if you want to take her away with you." 

It was another shock in an afternoon that had contained far too many of them. To hide my reaction, I crouched down for a better look at the little girl, who stared at me with wide blue eyes. Tentatively, I reached out a hand toward her. 

She recoiled and started to cry. 

The pendant in my pocket vibrated, and I could feel the spell on it try to activate, then subside in what might almost have been frustration. _Whatever that spell is, it's tied to her,_ I realized. _Some kind of protection . . ._

"I'm sorry," Lara was saying. "She's still very young, and can't understand—" 

"She's reacting to my aura," I corrected impatiently. "If hers is anything to go by, she's probably quite sensitive, and I've been known to frighten even trained, adult mages who understand what they're picking up." Straightening up, I added, "I'm sure my sister sent her here for a reason, and I doubt it was because she wasn't able to find me. Since Kid appears to be healthy and happy, I'll be leaving her here, at least until I find Schala." It went without saying that at that point, my sister would decide what to do with her own offspring . . . if that was what Kid really was. 

"You won't be staying, then," Lara said. She actually managed to sound disappointed. 

"He'll be sticking around for a couple of days, at least, even if I have to sit on him," Lucca corrected. "And don't you give me that 'How _dare_ you meddle in my affairs?!' look, either, Janus! Crono and Marle will want to talk to you, and . . . well . . . the state you're in, anyone who sees you will probably want to run you out of town as a vagabond!" 

"You do look a bit ragged," Lara said gently. 

I shrugged. They were right, really: five years of constant wear had stretched the cleaning and repair spells attached to my clothing to the limits. Dyes had faded, hems were tattered . . . even my armour was scarred from the attacks of a school of overly persistent sharks, and the only reason my boots still had soles was that I flew more than I walked. But still . . . 

"I don't have time to go looking for a tailor," I said. 

Lucca's expression softened. "Look, you've been searching for her for five years, right? A few more days won't make any difference . . . and besides, Marle always says that it's easier to get information out of people when you look respectable. _I'll_ take you to the tailor, so that you won't have to 'go looking', and I'll pay for everything, too." 

"That won't be necessary," I snapped. "I don't need your charity." 

"Whoa, there—I just meant—" 

My hand found the flat box in one of my cape's inner pockets, and I slapped it down on the desk beside me. The silver, bespelled to prevent tarnish, glittered even in the feeble light of the lamps that were the room's only illumination, now that the sun had faded from the sky. 

After a moment, Lucca reached out to touch it. "That's the Zeal crest . . . what . . . ?" The latch wasn't enchanted, so it only took her a few seconds to open it. "Oh . . ." 

It was more a collar than a necklace, woven out of delicate strands of gold and platinum, the pendant a round emerald easily an inch in diameter. The padding on which it rested showed small indentations where I'd removed the other items that the case had originally held. 

"Somehow, I can't see you just looting this," Lucca said slowly. "This has . . . some kind of sentimental value to you, doesn't it? Are you sure you want to sell it?" 

" . . . It belonged to my father," I admitted. "But I've already taken what I wanted—that's just a leftover." 

Lucca squinted at me through her glasses. "I didn't notice before that you'd picked up a second set of earrings. And . . ." Her fingers ghosted over the indentations in the lining. " . . . a ring? I guess it wouldn't show through your gloves." 

I shrugged. The ring was my father's signet, bearing the old form of my family's crest within an elaborate, near- microscopic border, and I was indeed wearing it under my left glove. In all of my memories of him, that ring had been on his finger . . . and so when I'd stumbled across his jewelry case while searching the tumbled remains of the palace, I'd taken it with me rather than leaving it to rot on the sea floor. 

Lucca was right: I wouldn't have stooped to looting, but the case and its contents were something I would have inherited in due course, if history hadn't interfered. 

"Still, you're really sure you want to sell it?" 

"I have no use for it," I said flatly. "Sell it, bury it under a falling mountain, drop it back into the sea . . . it makes no difference. It isn't enchanted, and I'd never seen it before I found the case." 

Lara cleared her throat. "Well, now that that's settled, why don't we go see what Taban has concocted for supper?" 

* * *

"Wait a moment," I ordered Lucca the next morning. 

She paused with her hand on the latch of the house's front door. "What is it?" 

I didn't bother with a verbal answer—it would have been difficult while murmuring the words of the illusion spell, in any case. 

I nodded approvingly as the skin of my arms darkened to something approaching a normal, if very pale, human skin- tone. I couldn't check the rest of what I had done without a mirror, but they were all minimal changes anyway—blunting my ears, hiding my fangs, altering my hairline, and tinting my eyes back to their original light green shade. 

"I don't want to attract too much attention," I explained to Lucca's gape-mouthed face. "Even if Mystics are now a common sight in Truce, there wouldn't be anyone else there who looks quite like me, and I'm not going to be able to keep my hood up the whole time we're there." 

She swallowed visibly. "Um, if you don't want to attract attention, I'm not sure this is the way to do it . . . Oh, well. At least I'll be the envy of all the girls we pass. Only the best for Lucca the Great!" 

I ignored her inane babbling, once I was certain that there was nothing seriously wrong, and opened the door myself. 

Of course, pretending to be an ordinary human of that era meant that I had to walk, rather than fly. It was harder than I would have thought—oh, not physically, but because my ingrained reflexes had me pushing off the ground whenever I wanted to move fast. And it brought to my attention just how thin my bootsoles really were. Fortunately, it wasn't that far to the fringes of Truce. 

The jeweler who bought the necklet and its case was a wizened old man who examined everything minutely, mumbling disapprovingly all the while about the "impossible" workmanship. At one point, he even seemed to be ready to accuse me of stealing it, but then he looked at Lucca and backed down. I suspect that even her presence didn't keep him from cheating me, though—I got what would have been a good price for the jewelry four hundred years earlier, but prices had to have shifted somewhat since then. Still, it was enough: it would pay for the tailor and for passage on the ferry to Medina—a regrettable necessity, since I had never visited that island in this time period and couldn't fly that far without landing to rest. 

The tailor's shop was at the opposite end of Truce from the jeweler's, and it was as I followed Lucca through the streets that I realized I was indeed attracting attention—mostly from women, although here and there a man would turn to stare as well. Since none of them did anything _but_ stare, I tried to ignore them. 

The tailor's shop that Lucca chose was small and cluttered. Rack upon rack of bolts of fabric made the shopfront seem almost claustrophobic. It would have been the perfect location for an ambush, and I found myself peering around corners and trying to see into shadows as we made our way back to the counter. If I _did_ have to fight in such a narrow space, it would have to be with magic—my scythe would have gotten hung up almost constantly. 

There didn't seem to be anyone manning the counter, either, but Lucca didn't seem surprised. Instead, she just rang the bell sitting there, and a moment later, a short, balding man stepped through a curtain and approached us. 

"Miss Lucca," he said, wringing his hands. "How . . . unusual for you to darken my door." 

Lucca grinned. "Don't worry, Sario, this time I'm _not_ here because one of our robots is going on a rampage through the town—I'm just showing someone around. This is Kid's uncle, Janus. He's been travelling for a while, and there was a bit of a problem regarding his luggage . . ." 

Sario seemed to finally notice me, and gave me a raking look that took in everything from my collarbones to my bootsoles. "So I see." He made a hopeless attempt to look down his nose at me. "Young man, I don't know who your normal tailor is, but if I let you leave my shop looking like _that_ , it will completely destroy my reputation! Come here, please." He held the curtain through which he'd entered the room to one side. 

I hesitated a moment, then unslung the steel crescent that concealed Schala's amulet and handed it to Lucca. "Let that out of your sight, and—" 

"You'll kill me? Don't worry, anyone other than you will have to pry it from my cold, dead hands," she promised. 

I turned and ducked through the curtain, to discover that the room on the other side was just as cluttered as the shopfront, although considerably smaller. 

"You're going to have to remove your cloak and armour so that I can get some decent measurements," the officious little tailor prompted. 

I spent the next quarter of an hour or so standing barefoot and shirtless on a cold wooden floor while Sario did various arcane things with a knotted cord. It was a type of torture that I only vaguely remembered from my childhood in Zeal—Flea had done things quickly and mostly by eye—and I found myself tensing every time Sario's hand brushed my skin. Under the circumstances, I couldn't very well round on him and tell him to keep his hands off me, but it was difficult. Even as a child, I'd never much liked being touched by anyone but Schala and Alfador. 

" . . . You're more muscular than I would have thought," Sario said as he made a few final notations on a slate with a stub of chalk. "That's all to the good, though—the ready- made garments I prepare for the taller members of the castle guard should fit you well enough without adjustment. Wait here for a moment." 

There was another curtain leading to the back of the shop, and he disappeared through it, leaving me standing there half-naked. Since I relied on spells rather than baths for cleanliness, I seldom stripped off so much of my clothing, and was a bit bemused by the sight of my own body . . . although it never really changed. Even my illusorily altered skin tone wasn't enough to conceal the fact that I hadn't gained or lost so much as an ounce of weight in the past five years. My injuries never seemed to scar, either. In its way, it was a bit uncanny. 

It wasn't long before Sario bustled back through the curtain with an armload of fabric. "Here, try these. The fabrics aren't quite as tough as that Mystic-made stuff you've been wearing—and where do you come from that a vagabond like you could get his hands on so much silkwool?—but they're less likely to disintegrate off your back than something in so disgraceful a condition." He set his load down on the corner of a table that was somehow jammed into the space and waited expectantly. 

I skewered him with a coldly contemptuous look. "I'm not accustomed to explaining myself to tradesmen. Don't you have a store to mind? I'll call you if I need something." 

It was the first time that Sario had looked me in the face, and I saw him visibly swallow. "Um, yes . . . sir. I'll be in the front." 

He disappeared through a curtain, leaving me alone to contemplate his offerings. 

_I miss it,_ I realize. _I_ miss _the deference that goes with unquestioned power. If she could see me right now, Schala would be appalled._

Shaken out, the tailor's offerings turned out to consist of cloak, trousers, a short-sleeved shirt and a padded vest that would work well enough under my armour, all in dark blue. I swapped the contents of my cloak pockets to the new clothing, then changed quickly, putting my scuffed armour on overtop and hoping that I now looked a little less like a . . . vagabond. 

Out front, I heard the door of the shop open and close. Someone had just entered . . . Well, what did that matter? I wasn't a wanted man in modern Guardia even under my . . . normal name and appearance. And the fact that the Black Wind seemed to be swirling around whoever-it-was wasn't any business of mine. I ducked back through the curtain . . . 

. . . and found myself looking at two very familiar people. Crono's quick glance was of the type I would have expected— _Are you a threat? No, you're not armed, so probably not_ —but Marle's glazed expression . . . 

"Hel _lo_ , handsome—so why haven't I seen you here before?" 

Lucca's appearance around the corner of one of the racks of cloth bolts saved me from having to answer. She nodded to Marle and Crono, and then held the steel crescent out to me. "Sorry, I thought you were going to be back there a little longer, and Dad's expanded out of his good clothes again . . ." 

Marle and Crono both stared as I re-slung the familiar ornament. Since Crono had always been a man of few words, it was hardly surprising that it was Marle who spoke first. 

"That's . . . You're . . . _Magus_?!" 

" . . . Do I need to turn you into a frog to prove it?" I asked dryly. 

"B-but—" 

Lucca was laughing. "Yeah, it surprised me too when he put that illusion up this morning—I mean, who would have thought that he was really so good-looking?" 

I ignored them both, much as I'd used to do with Flea when he tried to flatter my appearance. Beauty wouldn't have helped me kill Lavos, and it wouldn't help me find Schala, either. 

"Prince Crono, Princess Nadia! I'm sorry, I didn't hear you come in—" 

"That's all right, Sario," Marle said. "We were glad enough to have a chance to talk with an old friend—" 

"You . . . know Master Janus?" The tailor's look at me was appraising, as though the fact that I knew the two fools had raised me several notches in his estimation. 

"Actually, we've all known _Prince_ Janus for several years," Marle said, with an expression verging on the wicked, and the tailor's eyes went as round as saucers. 

"I no longer claim that title," I said brusquely. "With Zeal so long vanished beneath the waves, it seems pointless." 

"Then you need to learn to slouch a bit," Marle said cheerfully. "Daddy's always told me that royalty isn't just about your ancestry or your appearance, it's about the way you act—and you do the whole 'regal arrogance' thing so completely and unconsciously that I don't know how Sario ever mistook you for anything else. Anyway, Sario, about the stuff we need for the Porrean Ambassador's reception—" 

" . . . Porre has ambassadors now?" I muttered aloud. "It used to be just a second-rate market town . . ." . . . and part of Guardia as well, as I recalled. 

"Startled us, too," Crono said from near my elbow. "Something we did while we were messing around in the past seems to have shrunken Guardia's area of influence and made Porre into a major military power, but we never did figure out exactly what . . . and, of course, no one else remembers the other version of history. Actually, relations with them aren't very good right now—that's why we're trying to butter them up . . ." 

I hadn't intended to tell him, but . . . "Crono." 

"Yeah?" 

"The Black Wind . . . It's gathering around you again. You and Marle both. It isn't very loud yet, so I don't think that whatever disaster it portends is close, but unless circumstances change, something _will_ be happening within the next couple of months." 

Crono blinked. "Um . . . thanks. We'll be careful." 

* * *

"The ferry's just about here," Marle observed. 

I didn't understand why all three of them had come to see me off, but it hadn't seemed worth the effort of protesting. Let them do what they liked—I'd be free of them soon enough. But that reminded me . . . 

"Lucca." 

The inventress blinked. "What? You need me for something?" 

I pulled it out of one of the pockets in my cloak: half of a flat, water-worn rock, with tiny glyphs painstakingly etched into the smooth surface where I'd sheared the original in two. "Take this." 

Lucca accepted it and examined it minutely. "Um . . ." 

"You might call it a communications device of sorts," I explained. "If you place something, like a letter, on top of it, then run your finger from left to right along the symbols etched into the cut, the object will be instantly transported to the other half of the device. If something goes seriously wrong while I'm gone, use it to contact me—but it has a limited level of power that can be instantaneously exhausted by trying to transport something too heavy, so don't abuse it." 

"Huh. Was that what you were working on all last night?" Lucca looked the rock over again, this time with more respect . . . and with Marle leaning over her shoulder. "Why give it to me, and not . . . Oh, I get it—you're worried about Kid!" 

I scowled and looked away. _Yes_ , I was worried about Kid, since I was carrying what Schala had intended to be her daughter's primary protection around in my pocket, but I hadn't intended that anyone find that out. "I merely want to make certain my cat is properly cared for." 

"Don't be like that," Marle said. "I think it's kind of sweet. Anyway . . . can anyone use this thing?" 

I shook my head. "Only an operant mage—which, in this time and place, means the three of you. Or Kid, but she's too young to understand. Making magical devices that can be used by any random Earthbound takes more than a few hours." 

The ferry—if one could truly call a ship making a week-long trip that—was being made fast to the dock, and several of what were apparently going to be my fellow travellers were gathering near the area where the gangplank was about to be thrust out. All of them seemed to be human, which made me glad that I'd re-established my illusion before coming here this morning. 

"Guess this is where we part ways," Lucca said. "See you in a couple of weeks, Janus." 

"Bring us back a souvenir," Marle added, and giggled when I impaled her with a look. 

I was regretting having established even a temporary alliance with these people. _Schala, why did you have to draw me back into this?_

I received a number of stares as I went over to hover at the fringes of the group of travellers, but I was getting used to that. The fact that I didn't have any luggage would have attracted some attention in any case. 

Those who disembarked from the boat were mostly imps, with a couple of humans and a member of the old Mage breed—perhaps even a distant relative of Ozzie—who froze halfway down the gangplank, his eyes searching the crowd. I deliberately looked away from him, avoiding eye contact, and assumed that that would be that . . . until I felt a tug at my cloak as I stood in line, waiting for tickets to be taken. 

I rounded on the interloper, and discovered that it was the Mage. He froze under the force of my gaze, seemingly paralyzed. 

"So dark and so bright . . . Who are you?" Fortunately, he only whispered his question. 

"A ghost." A slight twitch sideways pulled my cloak back out of his slack hand. 

The Mystic took the hint sufficiently to walk away, but I wasn't pleased to see him, a few moments later, deep in conversation with the ferry's ticket salesman. A gesticulating argument, money and some other small objects—jewelry?— changing hands, and the Mage joined the tail of the line waiting to board the ferry. 

Well, I could always throw him overboard if he became too much of a nuisance. I would just have to make certain to do it quietly and where no one could see me—not that I couldn't terrorize the entire boat crew into doing whatever I told them to if it became necessary, but I was trying to keep a low profile. 

However, the Mystic didn't actually approach me during the voyage. He did watch me very closely, though. In fact, he seemed to spend most of his time camping in the hallway outside my solitary cabin, which I left only for meals. 

After three days of this, I decided I'd had enough. Shortly after midnight that night, I left my cabin, kicked the Mage in the ankle in passing to make certain he was awake, and went up on deck. Shuffling steps followed in my wake. 

There was an awkward little triangle of space near the rail on the port side of the ship that could be reached only by climbing over either the stern of the ship's boat or part of one of the anchors. Hoping that the night watch wasn't looking at that part of the deck—and why would anyone bother?—I floated up and over until I was able to drop back down and lean on the rail. 

A few moments later, I heard the shuffling footsteps stop near the anchor, then the sound of something short-legged awkwardly climbing over the jutting metal bar. I waited until the noises stopped before speaking. 

"You have one minute to convince me not to throw you overboard." 

"I'm sorry, Lord Magus—I didn't mean to disturb you." 

"So you know who I am." I continued to pretend to stare at the dark ocean while flipping over options in my head. Throw him overboard after all? Wait until we reached Medina and murder him quietly in an alley? Or should I— 

"Lord Flea's journals contained a detailed description of your appearance and aura. Once I realized you were under an illusion spell, I also realized that you couldn't be anyone else." 

Flea had kept a journal? I hadn't known that. 

"And you approached me . . . why, exactly? I have no desire to have anything to do with your people in this time period." 

"If you're concerned because Lord Flea considered you a traitor—" 

"In his estimation, I _was_ a traitor," I interrupted harshly. "My association with the Mystics was never more than a means to certain ends of my own. And my patience is wearing thin." 

Even in the low light of the lanterns hung about the ship, I could see the Mage swallow. "Just . . . it's . . . We-would- welcome-you-back!" he blurted out with sudden frantic haste. 

"Welcome . . . me . . . back." I repeated the words very slowly, while still staring at the ocean. _What nonsense._

"We need a war leader. Porre has been encroaching on our territory—they poisoned the mayor last year—" 

"—and you need help so badly that you'd accept that of a human who defrauded your ancestors," I said with a disgusted shake of my head. "Fortunately for you, I have something else that I need to do." 

"Lord Magus . . ." 

"Get out of my sight," I added, although I had never actually turned to look at the Mage. 

"Please!" 

Now I did turn, slowly, my hands rising to spellcasting position. 

"I have given you more of my time than you deserve," I said flatly, adding, in High Zeala, " _I command the obedience of absolute cold—_ " Bluish light began to gather in the palm of my hand. 

The Mage fell to his knees. "N-no! I promise I won't tell anyone I found you—" 

"You've been following me around ever since the ferry dock," I pointed out. " _Esran vaie—_ " That was a compact description of the Mage's aura, and utterly defies translation. It was difficult to maintain the structure of the spell and hold a conversation at the same time—I was disgustingly out of practice. 

"A mistake! If anyone asks, I'll tell them it was a mistake!" 

Slowly, I closed my hand, dissipating the unfinished ice spell with a frosty-sounding crackle. "Don't ever come near me again," I warned the creature. "And consider yourself fortunate that I'm not in the mood to have to explain matters to the crew after the discovery of your frozen corpse." 

I could, I reflected as I turned back to the railing, have thrown the corpse overboard just as easily as the live Mage—and with less likelihood of discovery—but the creature would still have vanished unexpectedly, and I would still have been questioned. No, it was better this way. 

The Mystic kept his word, staying well out of my way until we docked at Medina, and then vanishing into the town before I had even disembarked from the ferry. Hopefully, I would never need to come back here, and would never meet him again. 

At the western edge of town, I discarded my human guise and pushed up off the ground. It turned out to be rather a long flight—I hadn't realized how far Melchior's home was from the town, but that sort of thing happens sometimes when one is trying to find a place based on someone else's description of the route. The ferry had docked at mid-morning, but the sun was hovering close to the western horizon by the time I found the cottage. 

I dropped to the ground right in front of it, raised my hand to knock on the door . . . and then lowered it again as it opened. 

"Prince Janus!" Melchior . . . well, I _think_ he was blinking at me, since I could see a slight flex in the skin at the corners of his eyes, but his tinted glasses hid the eyes themselves. "I'm sorry, I should have realized whose aura I could sense approaching." 

"Just Janus," I corrected. "I wield no authority in this time." Eventually, I might even get used to saying that—to being called by my old name, although I felt I scarcely resembled the boy who had once borne it. But Magus's name, as the Mage on the boat had reminded me, carried a responsibility of sorts with it . . . a responsibility that I never intended to take up again. 

"I might disagree . . . but there's no need for us to talk out here on the doorstep. Come inside." 

I stepped past him and into the single ground-floor room of the cottage, noting in passing that there was no sign of a bed, or of anywhere one could be stored . . . but then, I remembered Melchior falling asleep sitting up on more than one occasion, and he _did_ have a chair. _One_ chair. 

I folded my arms and leaned against the wall while I waited for the old man to secure the surprisingly elaborate lock on his door. Three bolts, chains, a crystal that flashed in response to a whispered spell . . . it might have seemed laughable if I hadn't been able to tell that the swords hanging on the far wall were enchanted. If Porre was expanding into this area, Melchior would be aware of it, and wouldn't be happy with the idea of giving them magic-enhanced weapons. Had he already been approached . . . ? 

"I must admit that I didn't expect to ever see you again." Finished with the door, the old Guru hesitated a moment, then pulled out his chair and flopped down. "I can't believe that this is just a social call—even as a child, you weren't the type, and I doubt that you've changed much now that you're . . ." 

"Thirty," I filled in impatiently. "Give or take a year." 

"Thirty." Melchior's eyebrows crept up until they resembled a pair of furry caterpillars resting on the top of his glasses. "I would have thought . . . rather older. That means you would have been only fifteen when you turned that unfortunate young man into a frog . . . and yet his description of you, at the time that event took place, could fit your present self quite easily . . ." 

I scowled. "I remade myself this way when I was twelve. Accidentally. And that isn't what I came here to discuss." 

"Did you intend to move on tonight? If not, I see no reason why we shouldn't—" 

I slammed my hand down on the table, making it jump. "Satisfy your curiosity on your own time, Melchior. _Perhaps_ , after you've answered my questions, I'll answer yours . . . although leaving you alive should be sufficient payment for your services." 

"Goal-directed . . . but then, that's another thing you always were. All right, then, what was it that you wanted to ask me?" 

I took out the pendant and gave him a terse description of the circumstances under which it had re-entered my life. "My hope is that finding out what kind of spell is on it will give me some clue, some hint of where to search," I finished, placing it gently on the table. 

" . . . and someone with your level of power and of the opposing element would risk destroying the spell as you probed it," Melchior finished. I shrugged—let him think that had been my concern if he wanted to. "Very well, but it will take me most of a day to get a detailed reading, and I won't be able to start until the morning. In the meanwhile—" 

"You are damnably persistent," I growled. "Very well. Ask your questions. But—" 

"You won't kill me," the old man interrupted. "Not while you still need my services. You're not that stupid . . . and you want to find your sister too badly." 

And he was right, damn him. 

I waited. 

"You said you 'remade yourself this way'. How? And why?" 

He wasn't going to let me off the hook until he had the entire story, that was clear, so I forced myself to explain the events surrounding Caeron's death in the fewest words possible. 

"May I see the amulet Princess Schala gave you?" 

I unslung the steel crescent and laid it on the table beside my sister's pendant, upside-down so that he could see where the amulet itself was inset. 

"Interesting," the old man said aloud. "I think this is a fragment from the stone we used for her pendant. I wonder if . . ." He cupped his hand over it and murmured a few words in High Zeala—a spell I had never heard before, and which seemed almost nonsensical, but I could feel something happening. 

I blinked as I heard a tiny, soprano yawn, and Melchior lifted his hand to reveal a kitten-sized creature sitting on top of the amulet. _One of those dreamspawn he was so fascinated with, back in Zeal,_ I realized. 

"Hello, there," the creature piped, looking up at us. "Janus. And Melchior, I presume." 

"What kind of Dream are you?" the old man asked. 

The creature smiled. "I am the least of dreams: a sister's wish for her brother, nothing more." 

_Schala's dream . . . for me?_

"You can't have been paying much attention to her wishes," I ground out. _What I've become . . . Schala_ cannot _have had any part in that!_

The little being blinked lazily up at me. "She wished you whole, healthy, and in full command of your magic and your life. She wished you to shape your future freely, in a way that pleased you. I've served you as best I could, although the black fire burning inside you makes you a difficult master." 

"Then the form he now wears . . ." Melchior dangled the half-sentence in front of the creature suggestively. 

" . . . was what he wished for at the time," the creature completed. "A strong body, a fit channel for magic that could tear an ordinary human apart, and an appearance that would strike fear into the hearts of those who had all but killed him." 

_So it was my fault after all._ That made me feel . . . relieved. I didn't want to taint my sister's memory with even a hint of her being responsible for the things I had done. 

"Go back to sleep," I said. 

The Dream gave me an unfathomable look. "And so you assume you're awake. Well, I suppose it's a common enough delusion . . ." It vanished with a small popping sound. 

"No more of your questions," I warned Melchior as I noticed him starting to open his mouth. "I've indulged you enough. What I _am_ doesn't matter—only what I mean to do." 

I repeated that firmly, inside my head. I would do anything, _become_ anything, if it meant finding Schala, just as I had been willing to throw away my life in order to defeat Lavos. My _self_ was nothing more than a vessel for my will. 

. . . Odd, how I had to keep convincing myself of that. 

"All right, then." Apparently, Melchior had had enough of silence. "I was about to make myself supper when I sensed you approaching. Would you care to join me?" 

" . . . No." Sitting down for a meal with him would have meant revealing how desperately I craved raw meat, after a week of pretending to be human. And then Melchior would begin asking questions again. 

I restored the steel crescent to its normal place at my side, and teleported out of the cabin without another word, leaving Schala's pendant on the table. Melchior would take good enough care of it, and I preferred not to have it as a witness while I did something . . . very uncivilized. 

* * *

Moonrise found me sitting in the upper branches of an oak tree perhaps a quarter-mile from the cabin. I'd made a very satisfying meal of two foolish young rabbits, and was just about to settle in for sleep when I heard the sound of voices somewhere below. 

" . . . old man's said to be something else." The speaker's voice was soft, and he'd clearly mastered the art of moving through high grass without making any more noise than the wind. 

"He's old—he won't be that much of a challenge." 

"Be quiet, you two." The third voice held the sharpness of authority. 

"Sarge, there's no one out here," the second voice protested. 

"We don't know that," the sergeant snapped. "And if you two don't shut up, I'm going to kick your asses all the way back to Porre." 

Porre! And looking for an old man, of whom there was only one in these parts. 

I brought my scythe out with a smooth, silent gesture, then dropped from the tree. 

There were four of them, I discovered, and they were a bit past the tree now, putting me behind them. They hadn't noticed me yet, floating silently in midair as I was. 

Well, I knew how to get them to turn around. 

The Dark Bomb spell uprooted two medium-sized trees and sent a fountain of vegetation into the air. The sergeant, distinguishable by his more elaborate uniform, was the only one with the sense to either draw his weapon or turn around and check for something wrong behind them, though. 

"Looking for someone?" I inquired with silky menace. 

That got the attention of the other three as well. Their faces, in the moonlight filtering through the trees, registered a series of expressions—shock, fear, anger. Two of them pulled out weapons which looked very much like primitive versions of Lucca's guns. The third remained frozen, his eyes glazed with terror. 

I had, many years ago, designed my modified scythe with just that effect in mind: carrying it, I looked like an incarnation of death. It was the kind of mental sleight-of-hand that only worked on superstitious fools, but it was nice to know that it was still effective even in this more advanced era. 

"Who— _what_ —are you?" The sergeant kept his weapon carefully trained on me. 

"I see no reason to share my name with the dead." 

The sergeant swallowed and squeezed the trigger of his gun. I immediately whispered a word, and teleported back and sideways, letting the bullet whine past my ear. Then, before he could do anything else, I flickered forward, bringing my scythe around in a tight arc, and one of his men—not the frozen one, I had plans for him, but one of the others—fell to the ground, decapitated. 

Two more shots. I dodged, flickering back into existence behind the second unfrozen trooper and driving the spike that tipped the haft of my scythe up under the base of his skull to pith the brain. Wrenching it free spattered blood across the face of the frozen man, who wet himself. 

I watched the sergeant's face as he realized that he truly was a dead man, seeing the familiar play of resignation, then the peace which comes from being beyond terror. Only when I was absolutely certain that he understood did I raise my hand and utter three words of High Zeala, turning his chest to a red ruin with a bolt of raw shadow energy. 

For the first time since I had realized the Porreans were there, I canceled my levitation spell and dropped to the ground. I circled slowly around the frozen man, who followed me with glazed, despairing eyes. 

Abruptly, I lashed out with the haft of my scythe, tangling his legs and dumping him on the ground. Then I put my foot on his chest, leaning into it so that he could feel the weight, and just stayed there for a moment, watching and listening as he struggled for breath. 

I spun my scythe in my hands, trying to make the gesture look idle, although it was really just as calculated as the rest of this little charade. Then I used the spike-tipped haft to cut the straps of the Porrean's light armour. Once that had fallen away, I started on his uniform shirt, slitting collar, shoulder seams, and down each sleeve all the way to the cuff, and then cutting vertically down the front, circling around my foot so that I could delicately flip the fabric off him to either side. 

It's actually rather difficult to cut a man out of his clothes while you've got your foot on his chest. I'd spent a couple of years practicing on prisoners and corpses to get it just right, because nakedness takes all the fight out of some men. 

My current victim had something peculiar strapped to his left forearm. At first glance, it looked like some sort of bizarre open-work bracer, made of metal and glowing a soft green colour, but why would someone wear a thing like that next to his skin . . . ? Some of the openings were filled with what looked like small, oval-shaped, multicoloured rocks, which also glowed softly from within. Hiding my puzzlement, I tripped the catches, both of which were clearly visible. Unfastened, the thing ceased glowing, and I decided to ignore it for now. 

When I was finished cutting the Porrean's clothes away, I began to run the spike over his thighs and lower abdomen in what might have initially appeared to be a random pattern. 

"I don't like it when people lay hands on what's mine," I said, stroking a narrow red line upward along his thigh. "What I have shown you tonight is only the least of my power. And if I ever see you or yours on this island again, I will sink Porre to the bottom of the sea." The spike wandered upward toward his navel until it slid into the crease of his thigh. "Do you understand me?" 

He just stared at me with glazed eyes, and I pressed metal further into soft flesh, not cutting . . . yet. 

"Do . . . you . . . understand . . . me?" I repeated slowly, as though speaking to a mental defective . . . well, in a sense that was what this one was right now. This time I got a stiff, glaze-eyed nod. "Good." I took my weight off him, lifted my foot, and grounded my scythe at my side. "If you wish to live, you—and any others who may be waiting for you in Medina—will be gone before the sun has risen. Now go." 

He didn't take the hint, so I kicked him in the side. "I can still change my mind," I warned him . . . but it took a shove from my foot that rolled him right over onto his stomach to get him moving. 

I'd left him his boots, cutting off the legs of his trousers even with their tops, so that he'd be able to run faster and farther, and I was soon alone in the shadow of the oak tree, with three corpses and a meagre pile of soiled clothes and armour. 

Had I done the right thing? I wondered about that, as I stood below the blood-splattered tree. I needed Melchior for the present, so I'd reacted instantly and ruthlessly to the appearance of a threat. In fact, many people would have considered what I'd just done little better than murder—never mind that the sergeant had attacked me before I'd laid a finger on any of them. I'd dropped down out of the tree with the intention of inciting them to attack, knowing that there was no way that their power could be a match for mine. Slaughter, pure and simple. Schala would have hated it . . . _but this is what I am._

I sighed and shook myself out of my reverie. "Fool," I murmured to the night. How long had I been standing there, lost in thought? I couldn't even hear the fleeing man's footsteps anymore, and he hadn't been creeping quietly when he ran away. 

I used my scythe to flip that peculiar open-work bracer, lying abandoned on the ground on top of a slit sleeve, up into my hand. What I saw, now that I could examine it closely, confused me even more. It was woven out of delicate strands of three or four different kinds of metal, and another substance that wasn't a metal at all. Flattened, it would have formed a grid of eight openings by eight, each sized to fit one of those smooth, oval . . . not rocks, I discovered, prodding one with my forefinger. They were too light in weight and regular in form, manufactured and perhaps even hollow. 

Cautiously, I popped a blue one from its setting, and discovered that there was some kind of writing on the underside, although I couldn't make it out by moonlight. Curiouser and curiouser. Conjuring proper light showed it to be some kind of code— _1+7/Cur(H)_ —which did nothing to enlighten me. 

I stripped the three bodies efficiently, using the sergeant's utility knife rather than my scythe to cut their clothes off, and found that they were all wearing the peculiar grids . . . although the first man I'd killed had his fastened around his lower leg rather than his forearm. Four of those, and perhaps two dozen of the odd not-rocks—not even enough to fill one grid's worth of openings. In the end, I pocketed the lot, thinking that Melchior might know what they were. I also took what money the Porreans had had on them, and a wad of papers the sergeant had been carrying. The rest of their belongings, I had no use for. 

After I was done, I eyed the ground, probing with my subtler senses. Yes . . . there . . . that one would be big enough. 

I teleported the bodies down into a cavity below the level of the soil, leaving the splashes of blood that spotted the area and the crater made by my initial spell as sole witnesses to what had happened here. Let that confuse the Porreans if they came back to check on things—my messenger might have been frightened out of his wits, but he'd have calmed down by the time he reached Medina, and there might be others there that I hadn't had the opportunity to terrorize. 

Perhaps they'd even think I'd eaten the bodies. 

I spent the night wrapped in my cloak, on the roof of Melchior's cabin, sitting with my back to the chimney. It wasn't very comfortable, but it was the optimum vantage point if the Porreans decided to come back. However, it appeared that they'd given up for the present. 

By the dawn's light, I read the sergeant's papers. _. . . squad of five . . . enlist the smith known as 'Melchior' for the war effort . . ._ I crumpled them into a ball and tossed it in the air, then shot it with a fire bolt, which turned it to ashes before it hit the ground. 

The Porreans were in the process of becoming a nuisance. I hadn't intended to interfere in their little war of expansion, but it was starting to look like they were going to insist. I wasn't going to let them deflect me from my purpose, but if an opportunity to do them harm presented itself while I was looking for Schala, I fully intended to take it. 

I even toyed with the idea of slipping back through time and burning the town to the ground a century or so ago . . . but that would have negated the current version of the present, and quite possibly lost me Kid, my one real clue to Schala's whereabouts, so I regretfully abandoned the idea. 

Melchior was stirring in the cabin below—I could sense his aura moving around. Silently, I teleported down through the roof, and was back in my position beside the table when he shuffled up from the basement. 

I dumped the weird bracers and their companion not- stones on the table. "Any idea what these are?" 

The Guru blinked at me for a moment before shaking himself and seeming to come properly awake. "Those are . . . Hmm." He picked one up gingerly and turned it over in his hands. "I do believe that they're Element Grids, from the El Nido Archipelago. I've heard of them, but never actually seen one before. Where did you get them?" 

I didn't answer him, because I was trying to sort out some peculiarly confused memories that had just brought themselves to my attention. 

El Nido: a southern archipelago with thousands of inhabitants . . . except that half of my mind insisted that it did not exist, that the only island in the area was Gaia's Navel, uninhabited and inaccessible from sea level. I frowned. I'd actually investigated Gaia's Navel as a possible staging base once, since many Mystics could fly, but the war in 600AD had never gotten that far afield . . . and now I had a second set of memories suggesting that I'd attempted the investigation, and found the entire El Nido area walled off by an unseen force! 

It was the same kind of memory twinning as I had experienced at the Fall of Zeal, which implied that El Nido had come into existence via some sort of time tampering, although the scale . . . I shook my head. Even I would never have attempted something so audacious. And why would whoever had done it be so adamant that I not enter the area? The part of me that remembered the barrier also remembered seeing humans and even Mystics pass through it as though it hadn't been there, so it had to have been set against shadow-elements, operant human mages, time travellers . . . or me personally. 

I filed it away in my mind as something to investigate if the trail involving Kid turned out to be a dead end—not that there was any guarantee it had anything to do with Schala, but it was more than a little suspicious. 

"Off a few Porreans who didn't need them anymore," I said, finally answering Melchior's question. 

"Porreans? Hmm. I'd heard they'd taken up the use of this pseudo-magic, but it's nice to have it confirmed. Do you mind leaving these with me? I'd like to study them a bit." 

Pseudo-magic? "You're saying that these are some kind of . . . congealed spells?" 

"That's one way of putting it: congealed spells that anyone can cast, given the right circumstances. These are—" He popped a few of them out and held them up for a closer look, presumably at the codes. "—mostly minor healing spells, I think, with a few fireballs and other weak attacks." 

"Keep them for now," I said. "But be prepared to tell me what you find out about them. What kind of defenses do you have on this place?" 

Melchior shrugged. "Defenses? Almost none. The lock on the door. The walls are reinforced with magic, of course, but only to the extent I felt would be useful in weathering natural disasters. Why do you ask?" 

I rolled my eyes in exasperation. "Because the Porreans were looking for you, you old fool, and judging from their orders, it wasn't because they wanted to have a friendly chat. Unless you fancy working for the Porrean Army, you may need something more substantial in the near future than just a lock. I'll work on it while you look at Schala's pendant." 

"I'm not sure that's a good idea. I mean, I really prefer not to blow up my prospective customers." 

"I'll stick to pure defense and misdirection if it makes you more comfortable," I said, somehow managing not to grind my teeth together. "Nothing that would do permanent damage to your visitors. I may even be able to key the spells so that they only attack people carrying those Element Grids—one of their components seems to be fairly unique. I'm going to have to take one of them apart to do it, though, so I'd suggest choosing the one that you're most willing to lose." 

"It shouldn't matter—by my understanding, they should all be identical. If you need any tools—" 

I shook my head. "My magic should be sufficient. Eat your breakfast, if that's what you're up here for, then get to work on that pendant." 

"As you wish, your Highness." 

"I _told_ you, I'm not—" 

"Your behaviour gives you away," Melchior said gently. "You give orders in a way that indicates you expect to be obeyed. Anyone who'd heard you just now would have known that you were someone important once, even if he didn't know your history." 

Which was very much like what Marle had said. I muttered a curse and reached for one of the Element Grids, turning it over in my hands. I was just going to have to resign myself to titles, then . . . or alter my behaviour, but in my opinion, that would create more problems than it solved. 

Taking apart the Element Grid gave me strands of steel and copper and tin and a peculiar unidentifiable substance that seemed to have some of the characteristics of metal and some of . . . what was the word . . . plastic? In any case, it was nothing I had ever seen before, and incorporating fragments of it into my spells would hopefully cause them to target Grids and their wearers. 

By mid-afternoon, I'd produced a dozen egg-sized metal lumps with etched surfaces, each with a bit of the odd substance from the Grid hidden inside. There was no way to test them without making use of one of the other Grids. In the end, I gathered them up without bothering—I was fairly certain of what I'd done, and there was no need to distract Melchior with unexpected spells going off right above his head. 

I buried the talismans in two concentric rings of six around the cabin. The outer ring would generate a simple illusion that the building wasn't there. The inner . . . vertigo and confusion spells mostly. Unpleasant for anyone on whom they triggered, but as I'd promised Melchior, not permanently harmful. Hopefully the old fool's reinforced walls would be sufficient to deal with bombardment from a distance, if the Porreans decided he was too much of a danger to leave alive and unrecruited. 

Once I was done, I went off to find another of those unwary young rabbits. 

I returned to the cabin near sunset. Truth be told, I was starting to get quite heartily sick of the place even though I hadn't been there very long. After I found out what Melchior had to say, I intended to leave promptly. 

Melchior was sitting at the table on the ground floor, with the pendant and its chain neatly arranged in front of him. He seemed absorbed in thought. 

"And?" I prompted sharply. _Let's get this over with._

"I'm sorry, I didn't hear you come in." 

I waited until Melchior capitulated with a sigh. 

"The spell on the pendant, then. It's . . . distinctly odd. For one thing, I don't understand how it's powered—it doesn't rely on the Dreamstone in the pendant _or_ on a separate reservoir. In fact, it almost looks like it's drawing energy from the deep fabric of Time itself . . . although if Gaspar were here, he'd probably tell me I was hallucinating. The spell is also linked to a specific person, presumably Kid, and set to trigger automatically if she feels highly threatened for some reason, or if she is seriously injured. It appears to be designed to . . . rewind time." 

I frowned. "Are you saying that it's a time travel spell? That's absurd—it looks nothing like one." 

"I'm not certain that I would call it a time _travel_ spell," Melchior said. "What it appears to do is reverse the subject's personal time, running it backward for a few minutes . . . except not exactly that, either. If it activated in front of an observer, he would see Kid . . . simply disappear, I think. Kid would reappear five to ten minutes later in the same place and condition she had been in five to ten minutes _before_ the spell activated itself. I think that would include her memory— it would contain an inexplicable gap of ten to twenty minutes. As a form of personal protection, it's potentially effective but extremely bizarre . . . What is that?" 

I glanced down at the steel crescent at my side, which was suddenly glittering with light. 

"It's an alarm," I said, trying hard to conceal my surprise. "Someone appears to have breached the vault built under my old citadel. It might just be the ocean, since the area appears to have been flooded out at some time within the past four hundred years . . ." 

"There are still some islands in that area—the Black God's Teeth—What's so funny?" 

I shook my head. "You wouldn't understand." _The Black God's Teeth, yet!_ "But I suppose I should go and check on it. It isn't completely outside the realm of possibility that the Porreans might have someone able to make use of my old notes and paraphernalia." I swept Schala's pendant back off the table and into my pocket. "Don't expect me back," I added. 

Quartering a large area of ocean from the air, by the failing light of the setting sun, was . . . not an activity I would have chosen, left to myself. There certainly were islands there, though: black spikes of rock, lacking any softening vegetation whatsoever, although birds were nesting on a few of them. There was little to differentiate any one of them from the others. I had to rely on the alarm spell to tell me when I was moving in the correct direction, which left me playing a frustrating game of hot-and-cold. 

By the time the moons rose, I was skimming fairly low over the dark water, and had almost made up my mind to find somewhere to sleep and resume my search in the morning when I spotted the boat. 

It had been drawn up on a narrow strip of beach bordering one of the islands, below a looming pinnacle of rock that was oddly narrow and regular in shape . . . Conjuring a light, I noted that I had just found a chunk of masonry, possibly part of the foundations of my old keep, and impressive even in its ruin. 

The boat, by contrast, was a rather sad specimen— small, with its paint worn to tatters and its gear (even to my less than knowledgeable eye) inexpertly stowed. Whoever had used it to come to this island had not been a sailor, not even a half- trained amateur. That meant that it was unlikely to have been left by the Porreans, who wouldn't have sent completely untrained men on even the most trivial of missions. 

If anything, that made matters even more puzzling . . . but I expected that I would find my answers inside the old vault. 

In the end, I located the entrance, not by any great feat of memory or intellect as I ranged over the island, but by the simple expedient of accidentally kicking a rock into a deep shadow and hearing it tumble down a flight of stairs. 

I was surprised to find the door at the foot of those stairs open and undamaged, rather than shattered by the application of physical force as I had expected. The invader had been an operant mage, then, able to work the lock . . . a Mystic? Why would one of them come here, after so long? _And why would he have been fool enough to activate the alarm along with the rest?_

I call the area beyond a "vault", but in actuality, it had once comprised the bulk of the basement of my keep, and held my library and main workroom as well as the armoury that had served as storage for the magic-endowed weapons of the Mystic Army. Because of the armoury and the fact that it had occasionally been necessary for some random Mystic to bring me a message, the locked outer door had been designed as a general precaution against magicless humans, rather than to keep out anyone in particular. As for the inner doors . . . The delicately- balanced slab of stone that would have given access to the armoury was still firmly in place, a fact which I verified with a shove of my foot, and there was no sign that it had been moved in the past four hundred years. Scuffed markings on the dusty floor, none of them clear enough to be called footprints, led on past it. 

The other two doors were both open—had been opened recently, judging from the marks in the dust. I lit the lamps inside the library, which was nearest the entrance, with a word and an absent gesture. Someone had been there, had taken three or four books at seeming random from the shelves nearest the door, and had then moved on. I couldn't remember which books had filled those visible spaces—it had just been too long—so I followed the scuffs in the dust onward to my old workroom and found . . . chaos. 

A low-burning lantern stood to one side of the door with an open book beside it, and there were vague shapes, too large to be human, moving around inside. Blood dotted the visible portion of the floor, and there was another, smallish, possibly-human shape crumpled in the far corner. 

I lit the lamps. 

The vague shapes resolved themselves into a trio of the golem-creatures that Dalton had so loved to summon, which were fortunately too large to fit through the door that led back into the hall—I say "fortunately" because they were already converging on me, no doubt attracted by the sound of my voice in the otherwise silent room. 

I cast Dark Matter at them until they fell to the ground and vanished, then had to lean back against the wall for a moment while I sneezed the dust they'd stirred up back out of my nasal passages and mumbled the words of a cleaning spell in between explosions. 

Then, as dim foxfire danced across the floor consuming the dust, I went to check on that crumpled lump of maybe-human at the far end of the room. 

Definitely human, I discovered, but rather small. A child. A ragged boy, perhaps ten years old, with a red-shot shadowy aura eddying around him. He'd been flung at least partway across the room, from the look of things, and hit his head on the wall. Pouring some tonic over the worst of the damage made him stir and coil himself into a fetal position, but he didn't actually wake up. I glared at him in exasperation, but I knew that, given the head injury, it was best to leave him to wake on his own if I wanted to get anything coherent out of him. 

Except for that aura, he was completely unexceptional in appearance—brown hair, lightly tanned skin, and a thin, pinched face that indicated he hadn't been getting nearly enough to eat lately. He was very young to be so angry as to show those red streaks . . . or possibly not. At ten, I'd already been old in hatred. 

The lantern by the door, clearly his, was nearly out of fuel. The books beside it . . . The open one was a familiar volume, part of my research on summoning spells, but one of the three closed ones scattered beside it was a crude book I'd never seen before. Curious, I called it to my hand, leaned back against the wall, and began to read. 

It took me only a few moments to form an opinion, but I kept reading for the half-hour or so until the boy woke, simply because I had never before seen anything quite so horribly bad. If this was what the Mystics were using to educate their young these days—and there were several turns of phrase in the text that told me it couldn't have been written by a human—no wonder they were now incompetent to do so much as defend themselves against the Porreans! The syllabary in which High Zeala was traditionally written had been laid out at the beginning, with rough pronunciation equivalents, but no attempt was made after that to instruct the reader on the grammar or syntax of the language. Instead, the volume jumped straight into a random mixture of low-powered water-elemental and non-elemental spells, almost none of them written correctly. 

When the boy stirred, sat up, and began staring around at the lamps, I threw the thing at him, since it was of more use that way than as a source of information. He yelped and turned around as it struck his shoulder. 

"Burn that," I advised him. "It should damage you less that way." 

He clutched it to his chest. "Not a chance! Some of the spells in this one actually work, and—" 

"You should have learned by now the dangers of attempting spells that you don't understand," I said, using my foot to prod the open volume of summoning research. "A shame that whoever wrote that thing you're holding didn't." 

The boy swallowed visibly. "You mean, that was real? Those things, and that blonde man—" 

"Wait," I snapped. "A blonde man? About my height, but more heavily built, one-eyed, with long, wavy hair?" 

"He came out of the hole with the monsters," the boy confirmed. 

I muttered a curse. "Dalton. After thirteen thousand years . . . That idiot has more lives than a cockroach. The question is, where is he now?" 

"I don't know. He tried to ask me some questions, I think, but I couldn't understand any of what he was trying to say, and he got mad and threw me across the room." 

Which sounded very much like Dalton. Unless he'd deciphered the lock on the armoury door, which I believed to be beyond his ability, the blonde fool had to be long gone. He'd always carried a standard assortment of utility talismans, so he would have been able to teleport from island to island along his line of sight until he reached the mainland. 

A word and a gesture called the three books the boy had . . . borrowed . . . up into my hands. 

"Get up," I ordered the boy. 

I received a sullen look in return. "Maybe when my head stops hurting." 

"If you want to live, you'll get moving _now_ ," I snapped. "After I check the armoury, I'm going to seal this place off, to make certain that no _other_ ignorant fools can make messes for me to clean up by playing with what they don't understand. I don't particularly care if you're trapped in here when I do it, but you'd probably starve to death before you managed to learn how to teleport yourself out." 

The sullen look didn't go away, but the boy heaved himself to his feet and shuffled over to where I was waiting impatiently by the doorway. 

In the library, he watched me cast the cleaning spell with concentrated attention. That may be why, after I put the books he'd taken back in their places, I held up my hand and called two other volumes down from a high shelf where they'd been languishing for more than four centuries: a very basic primer on magical theory, and a grammar of High Zeala that I'd written for Flea. 

"Take these," I told the boy. "You'll find them more useful as a place to start than that thing you're holding." 

"Uh . . . Thank you?" the boy said tentatively. 

"Don't read too much into it," I warned him. "Properly trained, you might be useful to me. At present, you're nothing more than a liability to anyone who comes into contact with you." 

"Who are you, anyway?" 

I shrugged. "You can call me Janus—or Magus, if you prefer, although I no longer use that name very much. The connotations are too awkward." 

"Do you think I'm stupid just because I'm young? Magus died four hundred years ago, during the war between Guardia and the Mystics—even I know that." 

"That was what you were _supposed_ to think," I said, with a razor-edged smile that did a good job of showing off my fangs. "However, I have better things to do right now than explain my history to you. Come." 

The armoury door still looked untouched, but I wasn't taking any chances. I spoke the opening spell firmly, touching crystals and engraved symbols in the proper order, and it slid aside. 

"Stay near the door and don't do anything stupid," I warned the boy after I lit the lamps. "There are additional defenses in the farther reaches of the room." 

The etheric illumination was merciless in showing the dust that had accumulated on every surface. There were gaps in the racks which had once held weapons of every variety from daggers to poleaxes, and more than half of the barrels that would have held sheaves of arrows and bundles of crossbow bolts were empty—all lost in the war and never replaced. A few of the racks, made of less sturdy stuff, or with faults in their preservation spells, had collapsed, and at a couple of points, I found myself floating over tangled piles of spears and halberds. 

Everything in the room was enchanted, but I wasn't much worried about the Porreans making off with a few weapons bearing minor spells for sharpness, durability and self-cleaning. It was the less obvious and more potent weapons that I needed to check on. 

The shimmering curtain of light—a particularly strong ward that had taken Flea and I hours to cast together—recognized me and parted in front of me. Lacking that recognition, it would have been more difficult to get through than a foot-thick wall of solid steel . . . or at least, that had been the intention. Unfortunately, I'd seen fools defeat otherwise-well-thought-out security plans before, and Dalton was a prime example of a fool. 

I scanned the contents of the alcove it guarded quickly. Most of the necromantic talismans were gone, but that was because of Ozzie, who had been very fond of them. The prototype scythe I'd locked up back here, I'd retrieved from Ozzie's fort during that long-ago side trip back to that time period with Glenn and Lucca. Flea had to have taken the carven rowan wand—there was as much dust on that part of the rack as everywhere else, and it hadn't been disturbed recently. And the three dull black cylinders the length of my hand, whose use I had never explained to anyone, were still safely perched in their unobtrusive, knee-level position. They were what I had been most worried about, since even I couldn't really control the enchantments resident within them. 

I emerged from the curtain of light to discover that the boy had pulled an ivory wand of the type used by some Mystics to focus their powers for combat from a rack and was examining it curiously. 

"It will be years before you can make much use of that," I said as I dropped out of the air beside him, "but keep it if you like." 

The boy made a face. "I guess that means we're moving on again. Okay, I'm ready." He tucked the wand under his arm along with the books. 

I extinguished the lights and re-locked the armoury door, then moved on to the still-open exit at the foot of the stairs. 

"What are you going to do?" the boy asked. 

I drew the door shut without answering—I was too busy reviewing the structure of the spells I intended to cast in my mind. First, the simple but powerful spell that would shift the stones outside. The boy made a startled noise at the muffled thunder of heavy objects striking the door. If I had correctly carried out my intentions, the stairway outside had now collapsed in on itself. 

The second spell was fire-elemental, and slow and rather complex to cast, making it ineffective in battle even though the temperatures it could produce were instantaneously deadly to most creatures. It had been used by the Mystics for things like smelting ores and making glass . . . however, with my power behind it, it could do more. 

The boy jumped back as the door went from red-hot to white and began to sag in its frame. I terminated the spell a moment later, satisfied that that door would never open again, barring the use of a pickaxe and mining explosives. 

"What the—You just trapped us in here! What in hell are you thinking?!" 

Again, I didn't answer, because I was already murmuring the opening words of a teleportation spell. I paused on the next-to-last word, eyed the boy thoughtfully, and grabbed him by the waist and hoisted him off the floor in a single swift movement before completing the spell. 

By the time he'd yelped and I had released him to fall to the ground again, we were standing on a grassy little rise not far from Lucca's house. 

"This is confusing," the boy complained as he got to his feet. "Where are we? That's a town over there, isn't it?" 

"We're in northern Zenan," I explained briefly. "The town is Truce, the capital of Guardia. Get used to it, because you're going to be staying here." 

"Um, just a—" 

"Hey, Janus!" 

I'd known Lucca was there—I'd sensed her aura behind the tree to our left—but the sound of her voice made the boy jump. 

"You don't look happy," she added. "Does that mean it was a dead end? And who's this?" She crouched down to put her eyes on a level with the boy's. "Hello, there—I'm Lucca Ashtear." She held out her hand. 

"Gil Mithark," the boy said, submitting to the suggestion of a handshake. 

"Pleased to meet you," Lucca said with a smile. 

"I hope your house has room for one more, because I need somewhere to leave him," I said. 

"Wait a second!" Gil said frantically. "M-Master Janus, why can't I stay with you? I want to learn magic, and you're the only person I've found so far who's willing to teach me!" He hefted the books I'd given him, as though trying to remind me. 

"I need to be able to travel quickly, and right now, you would be a burden," I said harshly. Lucca winced, but the boy continued to glare defiantly at me, so I sighed and gave in. "Don't worry. I _will_ be returning here from time to time, and should be able to see to your education." 

"Wouldn't leaving him with Melchior have been a better idea?" Lucca said. 

"Melchior is already under siege," I replied. 

"Sounds like this is going to be a long story. Why don't we go inside? I should introduce Gil to my parents, if he's going to be staying, and, well, Alfador will be glad to see you. He hasn't been happy since you left." 

Indeed, the moment we crossed the Ashtears' threshold, a lavender cat was trying to climb my pants, meowing indignantly all the while. When I actually crouched down to stroke him and rub the itchy spots behind his jaw, he collapsed into a boneless puddle of purring feline ecstasy on the floor. 

Gil covered his mouth with his hand. Judging from his eyes, he was smothering a laugh. Even Lucca was smiling. 

"He won't purr for anyone else, you know," she said. "He just kind of tolerates us." 

I shrugged. "He's always been like that—in fact, he started trying to follow me around before his eyes were properly open. Even I don't know why, although cats in general have an affinity for shadow magic, and the genetic manipulation that was performed on the Royal Silvers may have accidentally enhanced that." 

"Huh. So you're a magic-enhanced kitty, are you, Alfador? That's really interesting." 

I didn't like the gleam Lucca was getting in her eyes. "Try to dissect him and I'll kill you," I warned. 

"I wasn't even considering it. Honest! You don't have too many friends, so I wouldn't feel right taking one away from you. Anyway, let's go sit down, and you can tell me what's been happening since you left." 

* * *

" . . . and that is where matters appear to stand at the moment," I finished, laying my knife and fork aside—my explanation, covering as it must such peripheral matter as why I suspected that a temporal discontinuity had been involved in the creation of El Nido, had continued on into supper. 

Gil, I noted out of the corner of my eye, had unexpectedly good table manners—when he remembered to eat at all. The boy was frankly hanging on my every word, even the ones he couldn't possibly have understood. 

"Dalton," Lucca said, shaking her head. "I thought we'd seen the last of him when he got sucked into his own Golem summoning." 

"There was a saying in the sixth century to the effect that Fate protects drunkards, fools, and little children, and Dalton is nothing if not a fool," I replied. "Unfortunately, he's a _Zealish_ fool, and any trained mage, even a minor fire- element, could easily have a disproportionate impact on the history of this near-magicless modern world. I need to find out where he is and ensure that he doesn't have the chance to cause too much trouble. He's already lived too long." 

"Do you want me to come with you?" Lucca asked. 

I shook my head. "You are the last line of defense against whatever my sister feared for her daughter. I need you to stay here." 

"I wish I could help," Gil said in a small voice. "I mean, not that I entirely understand what's going on, but . . ." 

"Janus is right, kiddo," Lucca said. "You need to learn, first. I mean, Dalton just about killed you, right? It takes time and experience to make a great warrior . . . or a great mage, for that matter. Do you even know what element you are?" 

"Element?" The boy blinked his dark eyes. 

"'Magic is divided into four types: Lightning, Fire, Water, and Shadow,'" Lucca recited, somehow managing to evoke the booming voice of the creature named Spekkio, who denned at the End of Time. "'Not just magic, but _everything_ is based on the balance of those four powers.' And everyone who uses magic draws on one or the other of them," she added. "For instance, my magic is fire- based, and Janus is an extremely powerful shadow-mage." 

"Gil's element is shadow as well," I said. "Unfortunately. If he had been anything else, he wouldn't have been able to use the spell that opened Dalton's way back into this world. Actually, I'm surprised it succeeded even with that factor in mind. Which reminds me—I have a few questions for you, boy." 

Gil swallowed visibly and put down the cup he'd been about to drink from. "Yes, sir." 

Lara, who had been quietly listening to all this while she fed Kid, cleared her throat. "Janus, please at least let him finish his supper first. You haven't eaten much either, especially compared to the way Lucca does when she's been casting a lot of spells—" 

" _Mom!_ You're making it sound like I'm fat!" 

"On the contrary, dear—you're too thin, and so is your friend. A healthy man should have more than just muscle and bone to him, like my Taban does." 

"Don't pull me into this," her husband mumbled to his plate. 

Lucca rolled her eyes. "Sorry, Janus—they're like this, sometimes. At least this time they're not trying to matchmake. I mean, they used to try to convince poor Crono to marry me every time he came over! No _wonder_ he picked Marle instead!" 

"Actually—" 

" _MOM!_ Don't you _dare_! I am _not_ marrying Janus or anyone else! I'm going to be the world's greatest inventor—I don't have _time_ for a husband!" 

"And I have no intention of being turned from my path for any reason at all," I said, deliberately using the cold, flat statement to deflate the mood like a bubble. Suddenly very tired of pretending to be human, I pushed my chair away from the table. "I'll be outside—Gil, come find me when you're done here." 

Alfador followed at my heels, through the building and out into the cool air of the trailing end of an overcast day. Standing ankle-deep in the wind-parted grass, I pulled out my scythe and began one of the practice routines I'd been neglecting for far too long. 

Driving my body through the patterns sometimes allowed me to achieve a state of mental stillness that I seemed unable to reach any other way. As I swung my weapon up and over in a leaping move that I'd never used in an actual battle, I wasn't thinking about Schala or Dalton or Gil or even the omnipresent hum of the Black Wind. In those moments, nothing existed that was outside the reach of my scythe. 

Then the pattern ended, and I was standing in the Ashtears' front yard with my scythe in my hands, a boy and a cat sitting on the ground watching me, and the wind playing with my hair. I hadn't even noticed Gil's arrival, but there he was, stroking Alfador, who was permitting it in the same dignified, condescending manner he'd always used with Schala. 

"How long would it take me to learn to do that?" the boy asked when he realized I was looking at him. 

"Years," I replied briefly, returning my scythe to its normal invisible position at my side. "I didn't expect to see you out here so soon." 

Gil pulled an unsuspecting blade of grass up by its roots. "It was getting to be a bit too much in there. I . . . my family . . . I miss them, but I can't—" He swiped his hand angrily across his eyes. 

"You can't go back," I filled in. 

"Yeah. What was it that you wanted to ask me?" 

"How did you come into your powers?" 

The boy yanked up some more grass. "I guess even Mystics aren't born able to use magic, are they? It's just . . . it was so _stupid_ , and . . ." 

I waited. 

"I'm from Porre," the boy continued abruptly. "My Dad's an officer in the navy there, or at least he was when I . . . Anyway, about two years ago, he hired a Mystic as our new housekeeper. She brought her son with her sometimes, and I . . . Well, I was curious, so I got to talking with him. After a while, we got to be friends, and he asked me why I'd never learned to use my magic. When I said I didn't have any, he said something about my aura, and, well, in the end, he cast some kind of spell on me. It hurt a lot, and I blacked out. When I woke up, at first I didn't think anything had happened, but, well, I used to wave my hands around a lot when I talked . . ." 

" . . . and some of the simpler telekinetic spells can be cast with only gestures," I completed. His friend had to have used the basic catalysis spell on him, although it was intended for infants and dangerous to anyone old enough to have a fully- formed personality. It had been known to kill adults. Gil was fortunate that he'd escaped with a mere loss of consciousness. "Was it your friend who gave you that excuse for a book that you had when I found you?" 

"No, I . . . um . . . stole that," Gil admitted. 

I waited, but this time, it seemed that he wouldn't continue without prodding. "Go on." 

The boy was accumulating quite a pile of grass by his right knee. "Well, first of all, I never saw my friend again—Dad fired his mom before I'd even had a chance to wake up. Then, when they found out that I'd somehow ended up with magic that I couldn't control, they locked me up, and a few months later, after the fourth exorcist told them it was hopeless, they . . . threw me out. They said that a freak like me couldn't possibly be their son, that I was some kind of changeling dumped on them by the Mystics and that was why I'd been born only ten months after Norris, who at least _looked_ like Dad . . ." His hand made another swipe across his eyes as the red streaks in his aura pulsed—his anger explained at last. 

"The book," I prompted. 

"Oh, right, the _book_." Gil gave me a bitter look. 

"Counting your grievances won't do you any good, boy," I said sharply. "If you want to do something about them, work out a plan of action that will permit it. Otherwise, let them go. Do you want revenge against your family?" 

He thought about it, mind visibly struggling with the concept. " . . . No," he said at last. 

"Or against the Mystic boy who did this to you?" I prompted relentlessly. 

"No! He was only doing what I'd asked him to do!" His eyes widened a bit, and he put his hand over his mouth, as though to prevent the words from escaping. 

I smiled thinly. "Then do you want revenge against yourself?" 

"Of course not—that would be silly!" 

"Then I believe we have exhausted the possibilities," I said. 

It wasn't comfort that I had been trying to offer him, exactly. The benefit of experience, perhaps. Conflicting emotions and old resentments don't bring one any closer to whatever goal one may have. 

Gil's mouth rounded into a soundless "O". " . . . Guess we have," he said, then added, "Right, I know, the _book_. Well, after my parents threw me out, I wandered around for a while. Sometimes, people would take me in for a few weeks or months, but they always found out about the magic, and I ended up moving on again. After a while, I figured out that I needed to find somewhere that magic wasn't such a big deal, and the only place I could think of that was like that was Medina, so I stowed away on a ship. Except that when I got there, they wouldn't take me either, magic or no magic, because I wasn't a Mystic. That made me mad, so I broke into the elder's house and stole that book. That was where I heard that Magus' castle had been somewhere in the Black God's Teeth, too. I figured that, if there was anything left of it, it might be my last chance, so I stole an old fishing boat, too . . . and you can probably guess what happened from there." 

Indeed, I could. He'd found that one particular rock with its finger of masonry, disembarked to look around, and sounded his way haltingly through the opening instructions imprinted on the outside of the vault door, which naturally included the opening spell itself . . . although not the one to deactivate the alarm. Inside, he'd pulled a few interesting-looking books from the library, and decided that the workroom would be a better place to experiment with unfamiliar magics. He'd then begun to work his way through my notes on summonings, unaware, because he couldn't understand what he was reading, of the point where the contents changed from commentary to spell . . . And because Dalton had been trying to break through into the real universe from the other side, Gil's lesser measure of power had actually been sufficient to open a dimensional distortion for a few moments. 

"Mind if I ask a question now?" Gil said. 

"You just did." 

"Um, I didn't . . . Okay, whatever. What I wanted to know was, if no one can do magic without having a spell cast on them, how did the first magician get his start? I mean—" 

"At first glance, it does seem paradoxical," I admitted. "Unfortunately, I have no explanation to offer beyond the legendary. In Zeal, it was said that humans gained the ability to do magic when they came into contact, some three million years ago, with an artefact known as the Frozen Flame. Presumably, it both instilled the hereditary potential at the genetic level and activated the ability in those with whom it came into contact." 

Gil blinked as he absorbed this. "So you're saying the first magicians got . . . both halves . . . of the ability to do magic, but no one else after that did. Or at least, I think that's what you said. Okay, I guess that makes sense, but what about the Mystics?" 

"The Mystics are the descendants of several races of artificial beings created in the decadent later days of Zeal," I said with a shrug. "Those who could use magic were built on the same model as humans, since no other was available." 

"Oh. Um . . . If you were the leader of the Mystics, what does that make you?" 

I sighed. "It makes me an arrogant fool who believed he could alter history through sheer determination and force of hatred. Ask Lucca to tell you the story—she'll know which one. It should answer most of your questions about me." 

Remembering those words later that night, as I lay in bed with Alfador curled up in the space between my cheek and my shoulder, I wondered exactly what I'd meant by them. Human will was what built the future, and I knew that _my_ will was far stronger than average . . . I wasn't fool enough to claim that hatred was the strongest of emotions, because I'd seen love bring about some remarkable things as well, but there was no reason that hatred should be inherently _weak_ , was there? I'd always held that such thoughts were mere sentimentalist drivel, although Schala would have loved the idea. Even if she would have had a hard time believing it, after everything we'd both seen. 

. . . Perhaps it was just that, for something of the magnitude of destroying Lavos, one person's will, regardless of its strength or of what was driving it, just wasn't enough. 

* * *

The next day, I began questioning my way around Truce, as the physical proximity made it one of the more likely places for Dalton to end up. Unfortunately, after a week of asking questions, I still couldn't find anyone who had seen a man matching Dalton's description—and between the eyepatch and the fact that few men wore their hair long in the modern world, the fool was distinctive enough not to be mistaken. 

That meant that Medina had to be my next target— although the town itself wasn't as close to the Black God's Teeth as Truce was, the landmass was in immediate proximity. I just hoped that Melchior hadn't been fool enough to help the human cockroach if they had run into each other . . . 

I teleported quite openly into the square at the center of the town, wearing my own face rather than the illusion of humanity that I'd been using in Truce. My theory had been that the Mystics would be more likely to speak frankly if they thought I was one of their own . . . but I never did have the chance to put that theory to the test, because I arrived in the midst of chaos. 

My ears took in the roar of flames and guns and the cries of the wounded, and I whipped out my scythe before I'd completely realized that I'd landed in the middle of a battle—old reflexes in action. It was also my reflexes that froze a duo of charging Porreans to death with an ice spell. 

I pushed off the ground and floated up to get a better look at what was going on. The fire was too well-distributed across the town to be anything but arson. The Porreans were moving between the burning buildings in a search pattern, openly slaughtering any Mystics that they found. 

I muttered a curse in High Zeala. _Porreans again. I didn't come here to get involved in a war, damn it all!_ But if I wanted to have anyone left to question about Dalton, I was clearly going to have to intervene. 

_The fire first._ Casting enough water spells of sufficient magnitude to put everything out would have exhausted me, but fortunately, there was an alternative. 

The first teleported lump of ocean broke over the remains of Medina's Inn with a crash, sending up a fountain of steam and soaking what was left of the building so thoroughly that it wasn't going to catch fire again any time soon. A dozen more of those, and the conflagration was reduced to sporadic flickers. 

Something whined past my ear and drew a red-hot line along my cheek. I teleported down and away before the realization that I had been grazed by a bullet fully registered. Evidently, the Porreans' startlement had worn off. My mouth stretched into a familiar expression, more snarl than smile, fangs exposed to the air. So now we would . . . play tag. 

I won't claim it was easy. My magic was my only advantage, but I had to conserve it—there were hundreds of Porreans and only one of me, and the Mystics of this era weren't fighters. A few of them stared at me listlessly as I passed, flickering in and out, picking patrols apart from behind and splattering blood messily all over the place with my scythe because being neat would have taken energy that I didn't have to spare. 

Hours of that, chasing Porreans through streets that smelled of smoke, sea salt, and blood, of hiding in half-burned buildings, rationing my dwindling supply of ether and hoping that it would be sufficient to see me through this. The Porreans became fewer and started to move in larger groups, but bunching together was an invitation to me to use large-scale spells instead of playing games. 

They began to pull back, and I followed, ghosting silently from shadow to shadow. Just slaughtering the rank and file would never be enough; I needed to find their leader. Unless he was a total incompetent, he'd be where they were gathering, coordinating their retreat. 

The Porreans led me to the ferry dock, and I cursed myself for not having realized that it was the one thing in the town that wasn't burning. The boats moored there were open and relatively small, filled with benches. They might have transported two or three hundred men, but only over a short distance—there had to be a larger ship somewhere nearby. 

I'd have to take care of it next. 

The leader was . . . there. That man, with the spiky black hair going grey at the temples. His armour was no different from that of the other soldiers, but I could tell what he was from the way the chaos eddied and smoothed itself around him. 

I moved, teleporting into the space behind him, positioning my scythe so that, when I appeared there, the inner curve of the blood-slick blade was hugging his throat. And the Black Wind thundered, rising to an even louder pitch than it had reached while I'd been slaughtering his men . . . as it should. That had been the removal of obstacles. This was more personal. 

"What are you doing here?" I asked him coldly. 

"W-what are you?" 

"Your death. Answer my question, and I may let your men escape. Continue to behave like a fool, and I'll blast this area to nothing." 

"I d-don't question my orders—" 

"Don't give me that." Patience rapidly eroding, I blew one of the boats out of the water with a quick Dark Bomb. "Medina posed no danger to you. It isn't a logical target for conquest when Guardia is more dangerous and can be reached by land from Porre. And yet you suddenly switched your tactics from harassment to destruction and slaughter. I'm sure you know the reason for that, even if it wasn't given to you _officially_." 

"It . . . t-the blonde man . . . Anyone who could use magic was too dangerous, that's what we were told. And now I understand why," the Porrean added bitterly. 

A blonde man . . . "Dalton is in Porre," I said aloud. _Damn and blast! That_ cockroach— 

Something punched me in the small of the back, and I whirled around, slitting the Porrean captain's throat as I did so. Teeth gritted against the spreading agony, I had a moment to see the pale face of the young soldier holding his smoking gun in shaking hands before a hail of bullets descended on me from all sides. 

I dropped to the surface of the dock, but not before another shot struck my shoulder, shattering the bone and making me drop my scythe. Another in my side . . . one in my leg . . . riddled with damned holes . . . Porreans closing in to make certain of me . . . I'd been so foolishly sure that they wouldn't risk shooting their leader. 

I gabbled the words off as quickly as I could, hoping that I still had the strength to complete the casting, and was instantly blinded as the Dark Matter spell spread out around me. Shouts and screams—the dock disintegrating under me to the accompaniment of the Black Wind's thunder . . . 

I clung to consciousness as I fell into the chill waters of the ocean, rolling to keep my broken shoulder from taking too much of the impact when I struck, scrabbling a vial of tonic from my pockets with my good hand and pulling the stopper with my teeth as I bobbed to the surface. I spilled more than half of it into the water, but the mouthful or two I did manage to swallow might be enough to keep me from bleeding out. 

A part of one of the dock's wooden pilings floated past, and I rolled over in the water, gritting my teeth against the inevitable flashes of agony, so that I could drape my arm across it. The cold of the water was prying away at my fingertip-hold on reality, and I knew I was too weak to do anything more to save myself. 

My mind tumbled away into endless darkness and the roar of the Black Wind. 

* * *

Although I'd done everything I could to make it possible, my return to consciousness came as a bit of a surprise . . . not least because I'd expected to wake on a beach somewhere below Medina, not lying in a rickety bed under blankets that smelled of smoke, looking up at an unpainted ceiling that was, judging from the way light was showing through it, in dire need of patching. 

There was no pain, and I cautiously tested my body. Shattered shoulder: whole again. No wounds in my back, side, or leg. There weren't even any scars that my fingers could find. And either someone had gotten some ether down me, or I'd been asleep long enough for my reserves of magical energy to refill themselves. 

It wasn't until I sat up that I fully realized that I was naked, although it was probably just as well—the self-cleaning spells I used on my clothes weren't intended to deal with prolonged immersion in salt water. The steel crescent was on the floor beside the bed, but there was no sign of any of the rest of my gear. That mattered little, however—I kept other things in the pocket dimension that normally held my scythe, although they required some burrowing to get at. Reaching into nothingness and feeling around produced the change of clothes Sario the tailor had all but forced on me while I'd been questioning him about Dalton, although I would have to go barefoot, as spare boots hadn't been included. 

I dressed quickly. There was no telling how long I'd been unconscious, but there was also no need to waste any more time. If Dalton had already ingratiated himself with the Porrean military hierarchy, then I had my work cut out for me. 

Blowing Porre off the face of the planet was starting to look more and more like the best solution to all the niggling little problems that were complicating my search for Schala . . . except that, realistically, I knew it was beyond my ability. If I'd been able to destroy entire towns unassisted, Guardia would have been under the rulership of Mystics today, and I'd have been able to summon Lavos and get myself killed by him without being interrupted by Glenn and Crono. The idea was . . . bittersweetly nostalgic. 

My feet were silent on the dirt floor as I padded over to the room's single door and lifted the crude latch. 

Outside, it was close to noon, and the sun was bright. The building I'd been in was some kind of small shed built near the seashore, just above the high tide line. The old sails and coils of rope strewn around outside indicated that it had been emptied precipitately of a random assortment of nautical gear so that it could serve as a . . . bedroom? Hospital ward? Not far away was a larger building that might have been a boat shed, and I could see Mystics moving in and out of that one, although they hadn't noticed me yet. I was probably still somewhere near Medina, then. 

I pushed off the ground and rose into the air for a better look around. 

Near Medina indeed. As I floated up to a height of perhaps twenty feet, the ruins of the town came into view over the rise on my left. Mystics were combing the blackened mess of half-burned buildings, although I couldn't tell whether they were still looking for survivors, or just for anything useful. A neatly rounded bite of land was missing from the shore where the ferry dock had been, around on the other side of a jutting headland from the beach over which I hovered, but there was no sign of the dock itself except a bit of residual wreckage bobbing forlornly in the waves. 

"Lord Magus!" 

The shout jerked my attention downward. A stumpy- legged, vaguely familiar figure was labouring away from the boat shed, toward the smaller building in which I'd first awoken. _That Mage who was stalking me on the ferry. Hmph._

I dropped back down toward the ground, catching myself and hovering a few inches up when I remembered I was barefoot, and waited. 

"L-lord Magus . . ." The unfortunate creature was doubled over and panting—Mages simply aren't built for running, but this one was of the wrong element to learn any flying spells, and apparently no one was making talismans for the purpose anymore. "Sir Melchior said he wanted to speak to you the moment you woke up." 

I frowned. "Melchior . . . Damn that fool. Apparently I didn't tell him to stay home forcefully enough, or hasn't it crossed anyone's mind yet that the Porreans are likely to come back in force as soon as they can regroup?" 

The Mage shrugged helplessly. "I'm just a messenger, my lord." 

I waved a hand, dismissing its words. "Never mind, I was only speaking my thoughts aloud. Take me to Melchior." 

"Yes, my lord." The Mage turned around and began to waddle back the way he had come. 

I floated forward, spoke a few words of High Zeala, and touched the creature on the shoulder. He windmilled his arms as he rose in the air, searching for stability. 

"I don't have the time to wait while you finish your morning constitutional," I told him. "You're not going to fall—at least not for a few hours. Will yourself in the direction you want to go." 

The Mage bobbed around in the air a bit, then seemed to get the hang of it and resumed moving toward the boat shed, slowly picking up speed. 

" . . . Lord Magus?" 

"What?" I growled. 

"Thank you. For saving us." 

"I didn't do it for your sakes this time, either." 

"All the same . . ." 

We flew a bit farther in silence. 

"What's your name?" I asked abruptly. 

"Slash." 

That surprised a bark of laughter from me. 

The Mage blushed an odd sort of purple colour. "My father's Ozzie VII, and he and my mother have this sort of historical thing going on . . . I'm kind of lucky, really—they named my sister 'Flea'. At least 'Slash' sounds kind of respectable, even if it's completely inappropriate. Um, Lord Magus?" 

"What _now_?" I grumbled. 

"If it wasn't for us, then why did you do it?" 

" . . . I needed to get a little practice in before razing Porre," I said, straight-faced. "I seem to have gotten rather out of shape, these past few centuries." The creature would never know that I was joking, and the remark certainly wouldn't harm my reputation. 

Other Mystics, mostly the omnipresent imps, stared at us as we approached the . . . not a boat shed, I decided, or at least not at the moment. Not with that many auras inside and that many water-elemental spells being cast. A hospital, then, but why hadn't I been brought here to recover? Had sheer respect dictated that I be given a private room, or had it been . . . something else? 

"How long has it been since the battle?" I asked . . . Slash, just as we reached the door. 

"A little more than a day," the Mage replied. "Um, Sir Melchior should be somewhere inside . . ." 

"I'll find him," I said. "Go." 

"Thank you, my lord." 

The doorway was wide but low, designed for the use of shorter beings like the imps, and I had to duck my head to get through, even after canceling my levitation spell. The floor in here was of unfinished wood, rough under my bare feet. I had been right about this place being used as a hospital: injured Mystics were lying on bedrolls made of charred blankets to either side of a central aisle, while others, more physically intact and with auras that indicated they were water-, ice-, or lightning- users, moved among them, offering what aid they could, although most of them weren't very powerful. Whenever my gaze came to rest on a Mystic who was still conscious, I received a deep nod—or a bow, from species who were physically capable of that—of respect. 

Melchior was at the far end of the building, bent over an injured female Greater Imp cub. She had clearly been caught in the fire, because she had massive burns striping one arm and the side of her chest . . . or she did until the old Guru got to work on her. Naturally, he made short work of her injuries—"Guru of Life" was, after all, a title granted to Zeal's most powerful user of water magic. 

I had to catch the old man by the shoulder as he stood up too quickly and nearly fell over. "Idiot," I grumbled. "If you hit your head, I'm the only one here who would likely have the power to heal you, and you would _not_ like what my element does to healing spells." 

"Prince Janus . . . I'm sorry. That was the last of the truly serious injuries, and I was hoping to finish before you arrived. I suppose I overextended myself a bit." 

"What did you want to talk to me about?" I asked. 

"I think . . . somewhere more private would be better for this." 

I grabbed him by the belt, lifted him a little, and teleported us out to the water's edge, near the old location of the ferry dock. Melchior staggered and turned greenish as I let him go, and I had to grab him again to keep him from tumbling down into the ocean. I hadn't known he was subject to teleport- sickness—Zeal's Skyways had never seemed to bother him, but perhaps he'd carried an anti-nausea amulet back then. 

"Are you always so . . . physical . . . with your victims?" the old man asked, rubbing his stomach where his belt must have dug into him. 

I shrugged. "My teleportation spell only handles me and whatever I'm carrying—I never bothered to develop one that would transport others." 

"So if you want to take someone else along, you have to carry him. If it's all the same to you, I think I'll walk back when we're done here." 

"I won't stop you," I said. "Now, are you going to tell me what you were so afraid to say in front of the Mystics?" 

Melchior shuffled his feet. "I had the opportunity— indeed, the need—to perform a detailed examination of your physical state while I was healing you." The old man took a deep breath, then said, "Prince Janus, you are no longer human." 

"That isn't exactly news, old man. In fact, a number of people have been able to guess as much just by looking at me." I hadn't thought that Melchior was _that_ much of a fool, but perhaps it was time to revise my estimation of him downward. 

"I'm not referring to the obvious superficial changes," the Guru said. "We both should have picked up on the words of your sister's dream—'a fit channel for magic that could tear an ordinary human apart,'" he quoted. 

I shrugged indifferently. "And so?" 

"Were you aware that losing your magic could kill you?" 

"Lavos drained me utterly, and I'm still here," I said with a thin smile. "Go peddle your nonsense somewhere else—I have better things to do than listen to it." 

"I'm not saying that it would be _instantly_ fatal," the old man snapped. "Enough of your normal biological processes still function to keep you alive for a time. I'm speaking of _permanent_ loss of your power." 

I froze. "Go on." 

"I have never seen anything quite like your present state before. Your magic has actually _superseded_ several of your body's normal functions, and tampered with many of the others." 

"Get to the point," I said through gritted teeth. 

"Well, there are several significant ramifications. First of all, you're sterile. Your magic has involved itself in the process of cell division and is causing every child cell to be a perfect duplicate of its parent, which works very well in all cases except that one." 

My shoulders relaxed slightly. If that was all . . . I'd never wanted children. Better not to perpetuate my bloodline, so deeply tainted by Lavos. 

"Secondly . . ." Melchior was ticking points off on his fingers, I noticed with a trace of amusement. "You're not aging. Or, more accurately, your magic is continually restoring your body to the exact condition it was in when you transformed yourself to your present state." 

" _What?!_ " 

I had rarely felt such total shock. _Not . . . aging?_ Not getting any older? But that meant . . . that meant . . . 

_That I have forever in which to search for my sister,_ I told myself sternly. _It doesn't matter. It doesn't_ matter _!_ Why was I feeling this sinking sensation of complete and total terror? I was shaking. I wanted to run . . . run away from . . . myself? _How ridiculous._ I'd never expected to die of old age. When I went, I knew it would be by violence. 

"Fate would never let anyone so thoroughly soaked in blood as I am return peacefully to the Sea of Dreams in any case," I said, turning to face the ocean. "Nor would I accept that peace, if the universe were to offer it to me. Is there more?" 

After a moment, Melchior seemed to realize that I was addressing him. "Well . . . as I said earlier, if you were to lose your powers, you wouldn't last six months, and you'd be debilitated within days—your magic is participating in everything from your immune system to your digestion of food. I'm not certain, at this point, whether it would be starvation, illness, or cancer that would finish you, because they would all be racing to take part. You . . . are as much magic as man, really. Even your nerves conduct shadow energy, rather than lightning." 

"I wasn't aware that was possible." 

"Neither was I, until I examined you this morning," the old Guru admitted. 

_As much magic as man . . ._ "I suppose this makes me the ultimate, perfect product of Lavos' interference with human evolution," I said, watching the wreckage of the ferry dock bob as the tide began to come in. "What irony." 

"I don't know about 'perfect'. You . . . could fit the description of what some people in Zeal were trying to create, certainly, but I never did think much of that sort of research." A pause. "Looking at what's left of Medina, I now understand why it made me so uneasy. One man shouldn't have the power to do these things." 

"In case you didn't notice, there _were_ a few Porrean soldiers involved," I said acidically. "I only put the fires out and destroyed the dock." 

"And killed over a hundred men." 

I shrugged. "By ambush and trickery, mostly, not overwhelming application of force. It's what I trained myself for, back in the sixth century. Truth be told, I could have done with some of my minions from back then, to help in the fighting. These modern-day Mystics are no better than children." 

"They were happy," Melchior pointed out. 

"Children often are. But they have to grow up eventually. I want you to supervise the evacuation of Medina." 

It took a moment for the exact content of that last, flatly-spoken sentence to register with the old man, and when he did, it startled him. "What?!" 

"Isn't there anyone on this island who has even the vaguest understanding of military strategy?" I asked rhetorically. "I dealt the Porreans a nasty blow, yes, but if any of them at all escaped, they also think they killed me. They may not be all that bright, but I doubt they're completely stupid, either. It won't take them long to learn that I'm one of a kind—that they don't have to worry about an army of Maguses facing them down if they come back. Which means that they _will_ come back. I've injured their pride, and they're going to want to avenge it— especially when they realize that there is little risk in doing so. When they get here, I want them to find a ruined and empty town. Incidentally, that means you're going to have to move too—the defenses I provided for you weren't intended to deal with a full-out assault by the entire Porrean army." 

"You are damnably high-handed," the old man grumbled. "All right—but where do you expect me to go?" 

I shrugged. "I'm told that Guardia is a pleasant enough place, this time of year . . . and you know you'd be welcomed there." 

"As a merchant of death." 

"For your own sake," I corrected. "Those young time travellers may not understand everything that Zeal's Guru of Life was supposed to be, but they know you're more than a weaponsmith." 

"Which reminds me," Melchior said. "I have something for you—and probably just as well, since your old scythe is now at the bottom of the harbour. Spent the past week on it." 

I blinked. " . . . Why?" 

"I'm not sure myself. Lingering feelings of obligation toward the man who would have been my king if things had been different, perhaps?" 

"Schala was the heir, not me," I protested. 

"That was only because you never demonstrated your magic, and I think you know it. You're far stronger than your sister ever was. If the Mammon Machine hadn't brought us to ruin, the crown would have gone to you as soon as people started to realize that." 

The corner of my mouth turned up. Now, that would have been irony: the misanthropic shadow-using prince chosen to take the throne, rather than the well-beloved princess. No, Schala had deserved the honour far more than I. "I would have refused it if it had been offered." 

"If that's what you want to think. I suppose it hardly matters now, anyway." It was clear that Melchior didn't really believe me, but as he'd just said, it didn't really matter under present circumstances. "If you'd care to follow me back to my cabin?" 

An instant later, there was no one standing behind me—Melchior's aura had vanished. So he'd been carrying a teleportation talisman after all. 

I gave him a few moments to get over his nausea before I murmured the words that would send me to his kitchen. 

The room was empty, but I could sense the old man's aura somewhere in the basement, so I climbed cautiously down the stairs . . . and into surprisingly familiar surroundings. 

It wasn't exactly like the old man's laboratory in Zeal, but there were more similarities than differences. Crammed bookshelves and open books lying wherever there was a level surface not urgently needed for something else, the remains of a half-finished project on the table, and a storage cabinet full of finished goods rammed up against the wall that guarded the staircase. Melchior was currently rummaging through that last, looking for something in the series of flat drawers on one side toward the bottom, which puzzled me—none of them was large enough to hold a scythe. 

"Here it is," the old man mumbled at last, draping something black over his arm. _Then_ he produced a scythe, pulling it from the other half of the cabinet and leaning it against the wall in such a way that it would stab anyone who was fool enough to come down the stairs. He shook out the black thing and held it up, causing it to resolve itself into a chainmail vest made of some dark metal. "Yes, I was right about the size. It's a good thing that I made it, too—your old armour was in bad enough shape when you visited me before, but it was positively shredded when they pulled you out of the water. Here, try it on." 

I accepted the protective garment, holding it up for a better look at the construction. I'd seen a lot of armour in my day, but the combination of the odd black metal, tiny rings, and the fact that it seemed to be made of two layers of chain, one on top of the other, yet still managed to remain quite supple, set this vest apart. It wasn't enchanted—either Melchior hadn't had the time to finish it, or he'd realized that I'd rather set my own spells— and when I did try it on, it fit perfectly, moving with me even when I attempted some of the twisting movements involved in the use of my scythe. 

Satisfied, I reached for the scythe Melchior had left leaning against the stairs. The old man didn't try to stop me, although he did—sensibly—step back as I twirled the weapon in my hands. The blade glowed like a crescent moon, leaving afterimages in the air . . . well, a scythe wasn't exactly a stealthy weapon anyway. Silver runes coiled along the black metal handle, but I could see at a glance that they were _lan_ runes—effectively, blanks, not yet tied into a spell, but designed to be receptive. The balance of the weapon was magnificent. Melchior had even remembered the spikes at both ends of the handle, and sharpened part of the outer curve of the blade. 

"I'm impressed," I said, grounding the scythe at my side. "It's far better than my old one." Then, reluctantly, because I'd never used the words much, " . . . Thank you." 

"You're welcome. Oh, and I thought you might like this back, as well." Melchior pulled a flat piece of stone from somewhere on his person and held it out to me. 

I accepted it, bemused. "I'd assumed this was at the bottom of the ocean along with my old scythe," I said, running my thumb over the etched runes—in the reverse direction, so as not to activate the spell. 

"It was pure luck that it didn't end up there, as far as I could tell," Melchior said. "The pocket you had it in somehow escaped both being shredded itself and parting company with the rest of your cape. An interesting little device, actually—it dropped a note in my lap early this morning. Evidently, Lucca and someone named Gil were worried when you didn't, in their words, 'return home last night'. I wrote them back explaining that you'd been knocked unconscious, but were recovering." 

I swore. "Those presumptuous little . . . My choosing not to go back to the Ashtears' does _not_ constitute an emergency, and they had no way of telling that anything more had happened." Giving the stone talisman an irritated glare, I shoved it deep into a pocket. 

"Apparently, they believed otherwise," Melchior said. "Your friends value you more than you think." 

"Fools," I growled. "I'd better get back there and knock some sense into them. Don't forget what I said about evacuating Medina." 

The scythe slid neatly into the same nothing as its predecessor had once occupied, and I teleported myself immediately after it found its place. Feeling the sun-warmed wood of the Ashtears' porch under my bare toes, I reflected irritably that, before I could go after Dalton, I was going to have to find a cobbler. 

I didn't bother to knock, just opened the door and stepped inside—if Lucca and the others had decided that this was my . . . home, I was going to treat it as one. 

" _Mrah!_ " Alfador reproached me from where he was lying on the table to the right of the door. He stretched slowly and ostentatiously before hopping down and padding over to twine around my ankles. 

Gil's head appeared in the open doorway at the far end of the room. "Master Janus! Um . . . is it safe to ask what happened?" 

"I got a bit incautious while repelling the Porrean invasion of Medina." Truthful and succinct. 

Gil's eyes widened. "All by yourself?" 

"Effectively, yes." Although I had to admit that it hadn't been the smartest thing I'd ever done. 

"You _idiot!_ Why didn't you ask for help?!" Lucca appeared from somewhere deeper inside the house. 

I raised an eyebrow. "And how would you have gotten there in time to do any good?" 

"I'd have thought of something!" 

Knowing Lucca, she might have, at that, but . . . "If you think I could have stopped in the middle of a battle to write a note and send it to you, then you have a somewhat exaggerated idea of my abilities," I said in my driest tone of voice. 

It was Gil who peered at me suspiciously and asked, "Was that supposed to be a joke?" 

"It's hard to tell with him, sometimes," Lucca said. "Anyway, Janus, it's good to see that you're back here in one piece." 

"I didn't ask for your concern." But somehow, the words lacked any real bite. 

"You've got it anyway. Get used to it . . . or do we not count because neither of us is a purple cat?" 

" _Mrao,_ " Alfador said, hearing the word _cat_. 

"Alfador is . . ." But I ended up bending down to pick the cat up instead, to hide the fact that I wasn't really able to explain what he meant to me. 

Lucca sighed. "I think what you mean is, because you got Alfador before you . . . became what you are now . . . letting yourself feel for him doesn't bother you. We'll work on that. Otherwise, when you finally do find your sister—" 

"You seem to be operating from a mistaken assumption," I snapped. "My sole interest in finding Schala is to see that she's safe and happy. I have no intent to impose myself on her life." 

"And do you think she _would_ be happy, seeing you like this? So miserable? So _damaged_? When she loved you so much?" 

"I don't intend to reveal myself to her." 

Lucca planted her hands on her hips. "Oh, that's just great. So she'll think her brother is missing, vanished somewhere into time—" 

I shook my head. "She knows. We spoke briefly after Marle and Glenn left the Ocean Palace, but that wasn't long enough for her to discover . . . too much. However, she is aware that I survived the Fall of Zeal." 

"Which makes it even more likely that she would go looking for you," Lucca pointed out. "And wouldn't that be an interesting mess? The two of you chasing each other around and around in circles—" 

"Schala is too sensible to throw away her life on such a fool's quest." 

"Unlike you?" The expression on Lucca's face . . . 

"The last thing I want is your pity," I snarled. "Stop trying to make my decisions for me! It appears that I will have eternity in which to pursue whatever madness I choose, so why should I deprive myself?" 

Pity dissolved into confusion, then smoothed over. "Something more happened while you were away than just a fight with the Porreans that half-killed you," Lucca said. 

I glared at her. "Why don't you ask Melchior about it, since you and he seem to be on such good terms?" 

"Oh, stop that!" It was the first time I'd ever seen Lucca angry. "You're not going to chase me away no matter how nasty you get, so don't waste your energy by trying! Just _for once_ try to accept that I _do_ consider you a friend, and I _do_ worry about you, and if something is too painful for you to talk about, come out and _say_ so instead of trying to pretend that you're invulnerable!" 

" _Mrao,_ " confirmed Alfador. 

"Melchior revealed some information to me that I hadn't been aware of before, that's all," I said, after a long pause to get my own temper back under control. "It's something whose ramifications I'm still trying to come to terms with. In the meanwhile, I've traced Dalton: apparently, he's in Porre." 

"Porre. Why do I think that isn't a good thing?" Lucca asked. 

"Probably because it isn't. The Porreans are enough of a problem already. If they're recruiting mages, things could potentially get much worse." 

"So I take it that you'll be leaving again right away— well, after you buy a new pair of boots." 

"Tomorrow will be soon enough," I corrected. "I need to talk to Crono . . . and to Gil." 

The boy, who had been listening quietly through all this, blinked. "To _me_? Why?" 

"Because you're the only person I know who's from Porre. I've never been there in the current version of history, so I don't know how the city is laid out, or what things are normally like there. You should have at least some of that information." 

Lucca nibbled at her lower lip. "And Crono will know the current political and military situation . . . Okay, I see where you're going. You might want to see if you can charge the cost of your boots to the Royal Treasury, too—I know you're not doing this because you want to help Guardia, but it's going to have that effect anyway, isn't it?" 

"Possibly . . . or I could be making a bad situation worse, which I may already have done in Medina. I don't have the information to speculate effectively at this point." With a thin smile, I added, "And it's been years since I last ran a war. I may be somewhat out of practice." 

Lucca actually smiled back. "Out of practice? You? I don't believe it. Besides, this isn't a war yet, is it?" 

"That," I admitted, "is one of the things I need to talk to Crono about."


	4. IV. Memories of Guardia

"We're getting pretty close to one, but there's been no official declaration yet," the red-head said. "There have been rumours, this past day or so, that the Porrean Ambassador is quietly packing up to make a run for home, but nothing that the King is willing to act on." 

"Daddy's getting old," Marle added from where she was sitting on the floor beside their daughter, keeping an eye on her while the little girl assaulted some unsuspecting sheets of paper with thick crayons. "He doesn't want to rock the boat. But he isn't willing to abdicate in our favour yet, either, so there isn't much we can do." 

I muttered a curse in High Zeala. "I hadn't realized it was that bad. The events in Medina may end up precipitating something, if relations are already so strained." 

Crono turned his sword over in his lap. He'd been sharpening it when I'd been shown into the royal couple's private quarters, and now appeared to be checking it for nicks or wire edges. The light falling from the window beside which we sat brought out the peacock-coloured shimmer on the surface of the steel which had earned the weapon its name of "Rainbow". 

"Something would have happened sooner or later," he said. "If they wanted to invade us, they'd find an excuse." 

"You're learning," I said approvingly. 

Crono chuckled. "Well, you _have_ been away for five years, and I've had good teachers. I swear, even my _cat_ 's picked up something about politics, although I don't know how we'd find out for sure." 

"Even the Gurus of Zeal never managed to design a test for feline political acuity," I agreed. "For some reason, they couldn't get the cats to cooperate." Marle snickered. 

. . . Why was it so easy to joke with these people? 

"I don't know what _you've_ been up to these past five years," the princess said, "other than looking for your sister, of course, but it seems to have done you some good. You're . . . more relaxed." 

Was I? The years I had spent combing the post-Fall world hadn't been easy, but . . . there had been a sort of purity to the difficulty. Fighting with weather and wildlife had at least been straightforward, with no question of the identity of my enemies, no allies to worry about, and no chance of anything switching sides on me. Perhaps it had eased something inside me, at that. 

"Lucca seems to disagree," I said. 

Marle snorted. "Oh, Lucca. That's because she's a scientist. She thinks it should be possible to fix everything, completely, right away, provided that you know enough about how it works. She has a hard time accepting that that approach won't work with human beings." 

"Convincing her that I'm not broken seems to be equally difficult," I observed. 

"Try 'impossible'," Crono said with a smile. "Look, if she's being too much of a problem, you can always move up here. I mean, it isn't as though we don't have plenty of empty rooms!" 

"Evidently your tutors in politics still have more work to do," I said. "Can you imagine what would happen if anyone here found out about my history—or even got a good look at me with my illusions down? My name is still remembered in these parts, if I'm not mistaken." 

"Yes and no," Marle said seriously. "Before I landed four hundred years in the past, I'd never heard of 'Magus' as anything more than a sort of . . . of boogeyman. My nurse used to use your name to frighten me when I was being particularly horrible. But no one knows what you actually looked like, so as long as you call yourself 'Janus', there wouldn't be any reason to connect you with that Magus." 

"You know, when we met you, I was actually kind of disappointed," her husband added. "You weren't ten feet tall, you didn't have wings or horns or a tail . . . Only the eyes and the fangs fit, and, well . . ." 

"They're not really disfiguring," Marle finished for him. "Legendary demons aren't supposed to look so human . . . or dog-tired, for that matter, which you pretty obviously were until you scraped together the energy to get pissed off at us." 

"I'd been awake for seven days straight," I admitted. It felt odd to hear such a description of our initial confrontation from the other side. "If I hadn't been, you never would have defeated me . . . although under the circumstances, it may be just as well that you did." Doubly peculiar, to be admitting that. 

"Nobody could have taken on Lavos alone," Crono said. "Not even you. And, you know, I'm glad you ended up on our side. You really saved our bacon a couple of times inside the Black Omen. We couldn't have done it without you." 

I experienced the rare sensation of being at a genuine loss for words. 

" . . . Crono, I think he's blushing." 

Crono peered at me. "You know, I think you're right. I wouldn't have thought it would be so subtle, but he looks almost healthy there, doesn't he?" 

"If you two are finished with the comedy, I need to know about Porre's military disposition," I snapped. 

"Some things never change," Marle observed as her husband cleared his throat. 

"They've got their largest units garrisoned just the other side of the Zenan Bridge, but there are some in El Nido and . . ." 

It took hours for Crono to communicate everything he knew about Porre to me, and by the time I returned to the Ashtears', the sun was setting again. Since my arrival in this era, my life seemed to be formed of a mosaic of sunsets. 

My new boots pinched my feet as I crossed the threshold, but a spell or two would take care of that. Inside, Gil was sitting at the table, with a book open in front of him. As I entered, he looked up and greeted me hesitantly . . . in High Zeala. 

" _Zae-RAN-en_ ," I corrected him. "But getting everything right except the emphasis isn't too bad for a beginner." 

That got me a quick grin. "Does that mean I can start learning spells?" 

"Perhaps, if your knowledge is progressing equally well in other areas." I made a mental note of the fact that I would have to fetch some more books from the vault . . . and some other things, as well. _Would I be able to convince Lucca to set up an ether distillery, if I gave her the necessary information?_ I certainly didn't have the time to run such an unwieldy operation myself, but I was going to need a way to replenish my magical energies quickly, and the supplies of ether I had on hand were both finite and aging. Perhaps she would at least know someone I could farm the job out to . . . or I could train Gil to monitor the delicate processes involved, although that would take time, and for Schala's sake, I needed to finish this business with Dalton quickly. 

On the other hand, my sister was just as likely to be in Porre as anywhere else . . . 

It took me a week to trek down to Porre, complete with slipping past the border emplacements at the Zenan Bridge early one morning. The bridge itself was in better repair than I would have expected, and I saw some evidence of recent traffic along it despite the strained situation between the two nations. 

I'd wondered why I hadn't heard anything about Dorino since arriving in this era, but I discovered the answer soon after I reached South Zenan: where there had once been a thriving town, there was now nothing more than a sleepy little hamlet whose inhabitants made their living from wood-cutting, paper-making, and charcoal-burning. I wasn't about to interrupt my journey to ask questions about the settlement's recent history, but I assumed that, with the threat of Mystic aggression gone, the population had simply dispersed. 

Porre, by contrast, had grown even more than Truce, and sprouted a twenty-foot perimeter wall with three gates on the landward side, along with a separate fortress compound that took in a chunk of the shore. Huge grey ships with no masts were moored to the docks in that area. According to Gil, they were mechanically driven, although he hadn't been clear on the details. 

I approached the gate with my illusions firmly in place—the same subtle ones that I'd been using in Truce, although I could have altered my appearance completely if I'd chosen to do so. It was as much a test as anything: if a clear enough description of me had been circulated through the Porrean military for the gate guards to recognize me like this, it would tell me something . . . but nothing untoward happened except one of the guards trying to feel me up while he checked me for weapons, which I endured with a silent, icy glare that he affected not to notice. Either the failure at Medina had been ascribed to a mass uprising of the Mystics, or any description of me that _had_ surfaced had concentrated on the more unhuman aspects of my appearance. 

"A bit odd to see someone with armour but no weapons," the gate sergeant remarked when his man was finished, "but I guess it isn't illegal. Name, place of origin, and business in Porre?" 

"Janus. From Choras. I'm visiting my sister." I'd also considered using a false name, but discarded the idea—there was a chance, however small, that someone I'd met in Truce would recognize me while I was here. 

"Who is she, and where does she live?" 

"Her name is Schala." Of course. "She and her husband live a few doors down from the Sea Sprite Inn, in the west quarter of the city." The intelligence reports that Crono had access to had indicated that the information taken down at the gates of Porre was seldom checked as long as it seemed to conform to reality, so I'd had Gil help me prepare a plausible lie: there really was a Sea Sprite Inn in the city's west quarter, or had been a few years ago. 

The sergeant scribbled in a large register. "Okay, you're clear. Next!" 

At first glance, Porre appeared to be a pleasant city, full of light, with wide streets and whitewashed buildings. But after a moment, anyone with the least amount of awareness would notice that the buildings were very uniform in aspect, and anyone with military experience would notice just how carefully those streets were kept clear of the usual city-debris of sidewalk displays, trash, and loiterers, a cleanliness that would facilitate troop movements. People didn't stop to converse in the streets, and men—and occasional women—in uniform were everywhere. 

Porre was, in fact, a stiffly regimented city, as Gil's recollections had suggested to me. The military aristocracy gripped the nation in a far tighter hold than I'd ever attempted with the Mystics. I collected a lot of quick "threat assessment" stares, even from apparent civilians, as I strode down the main street toward the small square that Gil had identified as the location of several of the city's inns (although not the Sea Sprite). 

I wasn't intending to stay the night—now that I'd gained something of a feel for the place, I could easily teleport back and forth from the Ashtears'—but I might need some kind of base here, and it was in any case normal for a new arrival in the city to take a room. I was going to have to be fairly careful about "normal" while I was here, I knew, because anything unusual would tend to draw the attention of the military, especially with tensions running as high as they were. 

Shopping was also a fairly normal activity for a new arrival, so I invoked another subtle spell that would tend to deflect people's attention from me and spent several hours at the city's largest market . . . during which time I collected surprisingly little gossip. Although my spell should have made me seem non- threatening and ignorable, apparently people here considered the presence of _any_ additional person while they talked to be potentially dangerous. Until I disgustedly used shadows to swathe myself in complete invisibility, what little information I did pick up reached me only by virtue of my abnormally acute hearing. 

I hate trying to move through a confined space full of people while invisible. It takes tremendous caution not to accidentally touch anyone, and Porre's markets, confined as they were inside huge open-fronted buildings with support pillars in awkward locations, were a study in nuisance. Furthermore, it took me a while to find a useful conversation even while invisible. It seemed that the price of apples was an acceptable topic, but local current events were not. 

Eventually, though, I did find two older women murmuring to each other in a corner while they pretended to repack their purchases so that they would fit more comfortably into the baskets they carried, discussing what their sons had said about the "strange blonde man" up at the fort. They never mentioned his name, but their descriptions made it clear that he was unlikely to be anyone but Dalton: few men in the modern era wore their hair long or pierced their ears, although both had been common enough in Zeal, and there were unlikely to be two men in the world right now who did both those things, wore eyepatches, _and_ were rumoured to be magicians. 

Still wrapped in my cloak of shadow, I left the market and headed straight for the fort, which the square, even layout of the city streets made easy to find even from ground level. The gates were barred, and I had to wait for several minutes before a soldier arrived, gave the password, and was admitted, so that I could slip through the gate on his heels—while I might have flown over the wall, that might have strained my illusion of invisibility too much during the daytime, especially if the Porreans had a congealed version of something similar that they could mount in those element grids of theirs and therefore knew what to look for. 

Inside, the fort was almost deserted, or at least a great deal less populated than I would have expected given its sheer size and the number of soldiers at large in the city, and I found myself frowning. There were certainly innocent enough reasons why the fort might have been depopulated—maneuvers, for instance, or an invasion of some nation that had sprung up in the past four hundred years and which I'd never heard of, or maybe they'd even built the damned things with room for expansion!— but I didn't like it. 

I liked it even less as I began to explore the interiors of the buildings. There were barracks where the single shelf above each bed and the chest at its foot held what were clearly the meager personal effects of common soldiers, yet all the mattresses had been stripped of bedding and barely a scrap of clothing remained. It implied that the units housed there were expecting to be away for a while. Other rooms—workshops and offices—were locked, with the air stale enough inside to suggest they'd been that way for a few days, but no dust showing to indicate it had been more than that. 

The most disturbing thing I found was on the ground floor of the largest building. A breath of magic drew my attention to what appeared to be a small laboratory deep in its windowless interior, so I whispered an unlocking spell at its door and slipped inside. Among a clutter of glassware on one bench, I found a thin, oblong piece of metal, etched on one side with the glyphs of a communication spell . . . and on the other with the crest of the Royal Magic Foundry at Kajar, destroyed thirteen thousand years ago in the Fall of Zeal. 

A communications talisman, useless to Dalton in the absence of his troops, so it wasn't surprising that he'd given it up for analysis . . . but I couldn't believe that the Porreans had learned everything possible from it in less than two weeks. There should have been someone here putting it through additional tests . . . 

. . . unless whatever magic experts Porre possessed were currently needed elsewhere. 

I covered the rest of the building quickly and quietly, checking the various rooms until I found the man who appeared to be the highest-ranking officer left at the fort—not the commandant, though. I'd found his office across from this man's. It had been locked and empty. 

Standing behind and to one side of his chair, I drew my scythe, positioned it carefully just a hair from his throat, and dispersed the shadows I had wrapped around myself. I dropped my illusion of humanity along with the rest, because I now needed to terrorize, rather than hide. 

If I was right about what I suspected, every second might count. 

"Dalton," I snapped, the blade of my scythe throwing silver light into the officer's eyes. "Where is he?" 

No response, so I drew a little blood. "Speak up, fool, before I kill you and go find someone more talkative!" 

Unbelievably, the officer laughed. 

"I suppose it can't hurt to tell you, whoever you are. He left nearly a week ago, with the Guardia Invasion Force." 

I swore vilely, using a phrase that found its origins in the debased High Zeala of the sixth-century Mystics, and lifted the scythe away from his throat. 

"In the unlikely event that he makes it back here, tell that traitor that he's a dead man," I said with icy precision as the officer's head snapped 'round for a good stare. I held his eyes as I spoke the words of the teleportation spell that would return me to Guardia. 

It was worse than Medina. 

The Ashtears' front door had been staved in, and the house's entryway was full of the distinct scent of Porrean guns, familiar to me since Medina. A baby was crying somewhere deeper inside the building, but I couldn't hear anything else, suggesting that the soldiers were long gone. 

The only baby likely to be here was Kid, so at least my maybe-niece was still alive, but . . . I closed my eyes to improve my concentration, and finally found the little girl's aura in Lara and Taban's room. Without further ado, I pushed up off the ground and shot through the house, not pausing when I discovered Taban's corpse in the stairwell or when I had to blast a door that was dangling by one hinge out of the way. 

Gil was lying across the threshold of Lara's room, unconscious and pale, his aura so weak that at first I thought he was dead. I checked him quickly, but found no sign of any injury—it looked like a case of extreme magical exhaustion. Had he been trying to fight with his powers, without truly knowing how? 

Inside the room, Lara herself was curled around a screaming Kid. The crippled woman had a large bruise flowering at her temple. 

" _Mrah!_ " Alfador extricated himself slowly from under the bed, where he'd apparently been hiding, to paw gently at Kid's leg. 

She stopped screaming, blinked at him, and immediately cried, " _Ca!_ " and made a grab for his tail. However, Alfador had apparently become wise to her ways, because he evaded it. 

"Thanks," I muttered, and received a piercing, green- eyed look in return which I interpreted to mean, _You'd better appreciate this!_

While Kid crawled across the floor after Alfador, now blissfully oblivious to the condition of her surroundings, I examined my two patients. Lara's bruising yielded to a topical application of concentrated tonic, although she didn't wake, and I left her alone while I examined Gil. 

While he wasn't hurt, I found streaks of soot down his forearms and char marks on his sleeves—had he been trying to cast fire spells without understanding elemental cloaking? _The little fool._ If he had, he was lucky he _hadn't_ killed himself—channeling incompatible elemental power is dangerous. Truth be told, I was surprised that he'd learned enough already to attempt it, since a completely untrained mage attempting to cast such a spell would normally fail. 

I sat down on the floor so that I could support him against my shoulder while I tried to feed him an ether. Some of it, at least, went through his system in the correct direction instead of dribbling down his chin, and his aura brightened momentarily . . . then dimmed again, as though his magic were still being drawn away. 

I swore tiredly. Apparently, Gil had suffered some sort of magic-related injury that was beyond my ability to diagnose, much less treat. I needed Melchior, who was at best still a day or so out of Truce via the ferry, provided he hadn't decided to go elsewhere entirely . . . and I'd already wasted too much time here. 

A quick search of the house turned up no sign of Lucca, either dead or alive-but-drained. I hadn't sensed her aura during my earlier search for Kid, so I'd known that there was something wrong in that category, but I hadn't expected the Porreans to have abducted her. 

My next move was obvious. I teleported to the top of one of Guardia Castle's towers, expecting to find the entrances to the castle compound closed up and the Porreans preparing for a siege, or at least a bombardment, outside. 

I did not expect to find the main gates shattered and the Porreans making themselves at home in the courtyard. Nothing I had seen suggested that they had weapons that powerful . . . but one of Dalton's golems could have done it, if he had been willing to take the risk of summoning them after being trapped in their dimension for so long. The question was, why hadn't Crono and Marle destroyed it with their magic before it got close enough to do such damage? 

I searched the castle with my mind. If Marle was there, and alive, she was completely drained, but I could sense Crono's aura somewhere in their quarters. 

Teleporting myself into the room where I'd met with Guardia's prince and princess before I'd left for Porre revealed that the royal quarters were surprisingly untouched by any fighting. But from deeper inside the suite, I could hear the sound of someone sobbing. 

"Marle . . . Oh, Marle . . ." 

There were two doors in that wall. One of them, opened, revealed a child's room and a sleeping Princess Leene. The other was locked, but yielded to a whispered spell. 

Inside, Crono sat on a bed, weeping and holding Marle. Judging from the way she moved whenever his shoulders shook, she had been dead for some hours—rigor mortis was setting in. 

"Crono? Look at me, you fool—" I had to shake him to get his attention. 

"M-Magus? It was . . . because she was trying to save me . . . There was something in the food at the banquet last night, some magic-laced poison that kept coming back after she healed it . . . She kept casting her spells on me until she had nothing left for herself—" 

I glared at him in exasperation. "Have you even bothered to notice that this castle is overrun with Porreans? Wake up, fool. We have work to do." 

Judging from his expression and the way his eyes drifted back to Marle's dead face as I spoke, I wasn't getting through to him, so I backhanded him across the mouth with a small fraction of the force I could have brought to bear if I'd wanted to. The leather of my glove made a sound like a gunshot against his skin. 

Crono yelped and rubbed his face. The glare he gave me was quite possibly on a par with my own. 

"We have work to do," I repeated. "Save your mourning for later." 

"What if it was Schala?" 

I frowned. "What are you babbling about?" 

"What if it was Schala lying here, dead, right now? Would you be able to just get up and walk away?" 

"Yes," I said flatly. "I would. And I would expect her to understand why. Your wife is dead. There's nothing you can do for her right now . . . except avenge her. You have a duty to the living, Prince Crono." _And I need to get the Porreans and Dalton out of here so that Kid will be safe. And find Lucca, since my sister seemed to think she was the most appropriate guardian for her child._

"I'm surprised you don't bleed ice water instead of blood, you bastard." 

"Don't mistake self-control for lack of feeling," I snapped. "I've trained myself to handle my own pain, because there have been times when the consequences of giving into it would have been unimaginable. I have more important things to do than indulge myself. Now get up. You can come back here and mourn later." 

I received another of those glares, but Crono did lay his wife's body carefully aside on the other half of their conjugal bed. He bent to kiss her cold lips before rising to his feet. 

"All right," he said. "How bad is it, really?" 

"Your courtyard is full of Porreans," I said flatly. "I could find no sign of the castle's defenders, but I didn't take the time to explore the interior, so it's possible that some of them have been captured and are being held somewhere." 

"Can you find out? Please? I mean, I could go myself, but . . ." 

" . . . you were never any good at sneaking around," I completed for him. "Very well, then. Be ready to move when I get back." 

The suite's outer door was locked. A dead guard slumped against the wall on the other side. There was no sign of any Porreans. 

I wrapped myself in shadow and slipped down the stairs. 

Crono's father-in-law still sat his throne—indeed, it was going to be difficult to remove his body from it, pinned in place by spears as it was. My mouth thinned when I noticed that. Old King Guardia had been the stability of this realm. Without him, things were going to be difficult here, even if we could manage to chase the Porreans out . . . Kid was now condemned to grow up in an embattled nation with no experienced leadership, and all because I had been too damnably slow to see what was going on! 

The leftover defenders, a pitifully small group, had been herded into the kitchen and were being guarded by several dozen Porreans. Lucca wasn't there, but she was probably being held somewhere closer to her home. Dalton wasn't around either . . . which meant that I pretty much knew where he had to be instead, but I checked the courtroom first, to make certain that it was empty. 

I didn't even have to climb all the way down the stairs to the vault to hear familiar laughter wafting back up. Of _course_ Dalton was down there—where else would he be? 

I made a quick inspection of the rest of the building and discovered that there was still some fighting going on in one of the prison towers. After a bare moment's consideration, I dove in through a window, then established my illusion of humanity before allowing myself to become visible again and taking out two Porreans with a single swipe of my scythe from behind. There were enough of them that I had to use my weapon more like a quarterstaff at first in the combat that followed, letting the straight blades at the end of the haft bite flesh while I spun it, flickering in and out so that the Porreans couldn't bring their guns to bear. 

I was going to have to come up with an effective bullet-ward if I had to continue fighting these people—arrow wards, I knew from regrettable experience, didn't work on the small, fast-moving metal bits. 

I'd rescued a few more than a dozen Guardian castle guards, I discovered as I leaned back against the wall, panting and blood-spattered, among nearly thirty Porrean corpses. All of them—including the dead—were staring at me. 

"Pull yourselves together," I ordered them once I'd caught my breath. "Your Prince needs you." 

"Then Prince Crono's still alive?" That came from an older man with a grizzled beard, who wore a sergeant's badge on his collar and held a bloodied saber in his hand. "Last we heard, things didn't look too good . . ." 

"Princess Nadia was able to save him, but only at the cost of her own life," I said. "Now, get those men moving! We can't still be here when the Porreans realize that the fighting's stopped." 

I appropriated a dagger from one of the dead Porreans, and used it a few times on sentries as we worked our way out of the prison and back over to the main building, where the sergeant let us into a servants' stair via a back door half- hidden by vines. I took the grim job of dispatching the two Porreans there as well, and was surprised to see the sergeant looking at me respectfully. 

"Wouldn't have thought you were one of the Prince's friends if I hadn't seen you use magic," the man said as we climbed the stairs together at the head of the group. "Crono's a little, well . . . He doesn't like to get his hands dirty by jumping people from behind." 

"He's an idealist," I said. "Fortunately, I value efficiency more than morals." Testing the door at the top of the stairs and finding it locked, I added, "I'm going to open this. Be ready—and silent." 

The door opened inward, and left us facing the back of a rather dusty tapestry. I listened, but couldn't hear anything except the breathing and soft movements of the men behind me. One of them was panting—that would be the guard with the leg wound, who was being helped along by one of his friends. 

I pushed the length of cloth out of the way, and found the corridor deserted except for the dead guard who had been there when I left. One of the men sobbed as he emerged and saw that, and the sergeant chewed him out in a vicious whisper. Personally, I found the breach of discipline hardly surprising: like Zeal, this had been a peaceful kingdom, where even its defenders seldom fought. 

I opened Crono's door without knocking and led the way inside to where the Prince of Guardia was sitting, holding his daughter in his lap. 

"There are others being held in the kitchen," I said crisply. "And your father-in-law is dead. Dalton appears to be investigating the treasury. I didn't see anyone who looked like a senior officer, so the Porrean commander is probably with him." 

"Dalton." Crono sighed and heaved himself to his feet, still holding little Leene. "Janus, can I ask one last favour of you? Take my daughter to safety. I can't fight through the Porreans carrying her." 

I shook my head angrily. "Crono, there is nowhere safe right now that I _can_ take her. Truce is in the process of being raped by the Porreans, Medina has hopefully been evacuated, I've never been to Choras in this timeframe . . . The End of Time would be a possibility, I suppose, but if I couldn't get back to her, she'd be trapped there with Gaspar for the rest of her life." 

"Take her somewhere _relatively_ safe then—if she stays here, she'll definitely get killed. That devious mind of yours will come up with something, I know it." 

I made a disgusted noise deep in my throat, but when he stepped closer to me, I didn't try to move away. When he began to transfer the burden of the little girl, I accepted her awkwardly. 

Children. What had I ever had to do with children? I didn't have much experience even with Mystic cubs, much less these helpless little pink creatures, but this was the third one I'd had dumped on me in a matter of weeks. 

"You be a good girl now for Uncle Janus, Leene." 

As though on cue, the child stuffed her thumb in her mouth and began to sniffle. I hit her with a sleep spell before she could turn it into a full-blown wail. 

"What?" I snapped at her father when I realized that he was staring at me. 

"Just thinking that you would make a terrible Dad." 

"Thankfully, there's no chance of that happening," I said. "Just make sure you stay alive until you can take this brat back off my hands, or I'll catch your ghost and imprison it in the lightless depths of the ocean." 

Crono gave me a strained smile. "Um, yeah, right." 

"I'll meet you downstairs, then—this should only take a few minutes." 

"Just . . . don't show up unprotected, okay?" the red- head said. "I may be throwing a lot of magic around, and if you teleport back into the middle of it . . ." And the Black Wind picked up as he spoke, thrumming along my bones. 

I nodded to show that I understood, my lips already forming the words of a spell. 

The world lurched, and I was back in Lara's bedroom. 

The crippled woman had recovered consciousness, and was sitting with her back to the bed and Kid in her lap. "Janus!—Wait, is that little Leene?" 

I laid the sleeping child down on the floor beside her. "Her mother is dead, and her father is mixed up in the fighting at the castle. I'm sorry for dumping her on you like this, but I need to get back there." 

"Wait! Have you seen Lucca? Or Taban?" 

"Lucca is missing," I said grimly. "The Porreans seem to have taken her, which means she's probably still alive: they'd have no use for her corpse. Taban . . . was trying to defend you and the children, I think." 

Lara's shoulders slumped, then straightened again. "He was a good man, and he always did the best he knew how. If I could still walk, I . . . Well, I suppose there's no use crying over it, is there? If the only thing I can do is look after the children, then that's what I'll do. Could you please move Gil over here before you leave again, though? It's difficult for me to get as far as the door." 

The boy was still pale and auraless, but breathing, with Alfador sitting beside him like a sentinel. When I picked him up, the cat rose to his feet and followed us across the floor. 

"Are you trying to make me jealous?" I asked as I put Gil down, expecting to get nothing more than an inscrutable feline stare. Instead, Alfador butted my hand—apparently, that was supposed to be a "no". 

Then the ground shook, nearly sending me tumbling into Lara's lap on top of Kid. I caught myself against the bed and straightened up, wondering what in hell had just happened. It had felt . . . like a distant explosion . . . And the Black Wind was roaring. 

I swore. "That fool—he couldn't possibly have—" 

Lara looked at me in concern, but I was already busy with another teleportation spell and had no time for her. 

I should have emerged above the same castle tower from which I'd gazed down into the courtyard an hour or so ago. Instead, I was floating above a crumbled pile of shifting rubble and dead Porreans. 

Spotting a clot of live people in Guardian colours, I swooped down from the air to discover that the soldiers I'd rescued from the tower had acquired quite a few comrades, and all of them had somehow escaped the destruction. 

"Prince Janus!" the sergeant hailed me as I dropped to the ground. 

"What happened?" I snapped. 

"Prince Crono, he . . . When we fought our way out of the kitchen, he took rear guard . . . said he was gonna buy us some time . . . didn't realize how far behind he'd gotten 'til we were outside, and then—" 

"He called lightning down on his head and destroyed the castle, the Porreans, and himself," I said grimly. "Damnable noble fool!" 

"What do we do now, Your Highness? Prince Crono said we're to take your orders, at least until things get sorted out," the sergeant added . . . but I was a little distracted, because some rubble back up at the castle was shifting. Was it just settling, or . . . Yes, a shielding talisman was part of the standard array, and it might have protected someone in a sturdy, enclosed area like the treasury vault, although having an entire castle settle on top of it would have strained it severely. 

Then a curly-haired head poked up out of the rubble. The owner was facing away from us, but I had no doubt of who he was. 

"For now, just stay out of the way," I told the sergeant. "I have a cockroach to exterminate." 

I ignored the requests for explanation and drew out my scythe, then pushed off the ground and floated up to where Dalton, having pulled himself out of the rubble, was shaking his head like a groggy hound. His shielding talisman's aura of effect was flaring and sputtering around him, a clear indication that it was on its last legs. Inside that sphere of protection, he was alone. 

Before I spoke, I waved my hand in front of my face, once more canceling my illusion of humanity. I wanted Dalton to experience the full effect of my anger. 

"Abandoned your allies again, have you?" I asked rhetorically. "I suppose it's no more than I should expect from such a coward. You sully the memory of Zeal." 

Dalton blinked at me. His eyepatch was askew, so I could even see the muscles on that side of his face working around the empty socket. "The Queen's Prophet . . . but you should be dead!" 

"I might say the same of you," I replied, pointing the spike that tipped my scythe-haft directly at his face. "If there were any justice in this universe, you would have died long before Zeal fell . . . but I've long since come to the realization that the universe doesn't care, and so it is up to us to make our own justice. Dalton Rujere, I hereby charge you with high treason against the Kingdom of Zeal." 

Dalton laughed, but it sounded forced, at least to me. "You don't have the right to do that. Only a member of the royal family can bring a charge of high treason against a citizen of Zeal, and you aren't even—" 

"I see that you haven't figured it out yet," I said with a fang-baring smile. "If I were to tell you that I'd spent nearly twenty years in the future when I was flung back to endure the Fall of Zeal a second time, would that help? Or do I have to tell you my name outright?" 

"You're claiming to be Prince Janus? That's ridiculous! You aren't even human!" But he was looking at my hair . . . 

"'The Queen's children all seem to have a problem with authority,'" I quoted with dark amusement, dredging the phrase out of my faded, divided memories of those last days. "Your desire for me to be someone other than who I am doesn't change the facts. I am Janus Zeal, son of King Marus and Queen Aleana, and as is my right, I condemn you to death for attempting to usurp the throne that was rightfully my sister's." 

Dalton glared at me. "No true Zeal would consider dirtying himself by executing a traitor with his own hands." 

My smile never wavered. "Unfortunately, I seem to have run out of constructs to do the job for me. Now, get up, unless you want to die on your knees." 

Dalton looked from the spike-tipped scythe to my face, swallowed, and began to scramble to his feet . . . although at one point, when the rubble shifted underneath him, he nearly landed on his face instead. He was partly turned away from me when his expression changed from stunned to smirking. His hand made a short, curving movement near his belt and came to rest on an embroidered pouch that dangled from it by a thick cord, and his fingers ran over its surface in a distinctive pattern, down the center, over to a bottom corner, then crosswise to form an X. 

I sensed the gap in space and time forming before it actually appeared, and blocked it with a casting of Dark Matter the instant it opened. Within the darkness, something screamed, and the opening slammed shut again. 

"I'm surprised you dared do that," I said. "You do realize that I could have sent you straight back to spend another thirteen thousand years with your golem friends, don't you?" 

Evidently, he hadn't, because the very thought made Dalton go white. 

"Fortunately for you," I continued, "I'm tired of you turning up underfoot. You won't be leaving this place alive." The Black Wind muttered harshly, underscoring my words. 

"That's _my_ line," Dalton blustered. His fingers were at his belt again, flipping through a set of talismans more standard than his golem-summoner. He pointed, and fire shot toward me. 

I didn't even bother to dodge. The spell dissipated against my normal low-level protections, leaving me untouched. Shifting my grip on my scythe to something more businesslike, I swung at Dalton's neck. He did manage to evade me, but only by falling face-down in the rubble as his shielding spell sputtered and died. 

He sat up immediately and spat out a broken tooth. "I'm supposed to believe that you're a Prince of Zeal when you brawl like a construct?" 

"Some of us do what we must to survive," I said. "A shame you never learned that lesson . . . or the one about not involving yourself in matters that don't concern you. I might have left you alone if you'd chosen to become a farmer and fade into obscurity, but instead you had to attack my allies. That was foolish." 

"So that suicidal boy with the hair was your ally?" 

I shrugged. "I chose from among the tools available to me at the time." 

"He wasn't even a trained mage!" 

I could see the way Dalton's aura was roiling, and it was almost enough to make me laugh. "Is this a preliminary to offering me your services? If so, don't bother. You're not trustworthy, which means you aren't worth the effort that would be required to keep an eye on you. This is your death. Accept it." Then a thought occurred to me. "Or I might consider leaving you alive if you were to tell me exactly what happened to my father. I know it wasn't just monsters that attacked you that day." 

Dalton laughed, or tried to—his voice cracked, ruining the effect. "And I'm supposed to trust that offer? No, princeling, knowing that you want to know how King Marus died just makes me all the more determined to take the information with me to the grave." 

I had pushed him over the edge, evidently: convinced him so thoroughly of my power and malice that he wouldn't believe any offer of clemency I made. _So be it._ "Then we have nothing further to say to each other." 

Dalton scrambled and slid over the rubble as I brought my scythe around again. 

_What am I doing?_ I wondered suddenly. I was _playing_ with the fool, and it wasn't like me to be so inefficient. _Am I really that angry?_

_. . . Yes, I am._ Dalton had disrupted everything I'd been trying to do, and added insult to injury by refusing to answer my questions . . . but angry or no, it was time to end this now, lest the cockroach manage to scuttle away again. 

I flickered forward, reappearing behind the one-eyed fool, and stabbed downward into his lower back. _Kidney and part of the liver,_ I thought clinically as Dalton made a hoarse, ugly sound and tried to stanch the wound with his fingers. His attention diverted by the pain, he couldn't escape as I brought the scythe's main blade around against his neck with a powerful, twisting stroke. 

His head fell among the rubble and rolled one-and-a- half times to fetch up inverted at the bottom of a valley that had formed in the crumbled stone, long hair splayed around it in a disturbingly spiderlike manner. I remained where I was, staring at it, for several moments, because I'd just had an idea. If it worked—and there was no reason that it shouldn't—what Porreans survived it likely wouldn't stop running until they reached the other side of the Zenan Bridge. 

However, if I told anyone what I intended to do before I did it, the outcry would probably be audible in empty Medina. Even in the sixth century, it was something I wouldn't have done without thinking twice about it, both because it required a considerable amount of magic and because even I thought it was . . . disturbing. In this case, however, I couldn't see what choice I had. I didn't know how much of the Guardian army had survived, and pulling the survivors together into some sort of coherent organization might take weeks. I didn't want to give the Porreans time to entrench themselves. 

I flew over the edge of the rubble and dropped to the ground beside the castle guard sergeant. 

"Retrieve all the Porrean corpses from the rubble that you can, but don't risk yourselves," I ordered him. 

"Sir?" 

"You heard me," I snapped. "Don't ask what I want them for. You're better off not knowing. While you work on that, I'll be scouting out Truce." 

Crono had asked me to take his daughter to safety, but there would be none of that here until I ran the Porreans out of Guardia. I just hoped I didn't end up regretting it. 

I spent the next hour flitting invisibly from rooftop to rooftop inside the town, occasionally slipping inside a building when I decided I wanted further information. I found the man who had to be the Porrean commander in the common room of the inn, surrounded by maps, subordinates, and mechanical devices that I assumed had something to do with communications. In my mind, I cursed him for not having been at the castle when Crono had destroyed it, but that was as it was. 

Easier to work with current circumstances than to attempt to change the past, I'd discovered. 

I found Lucca as well, in the basement of a shop on the other side of the street. I teleported myself inside, still holding my invisibility about me like a cloak, and examined the place. Walls, ceiling, and floor of solid stone, barred windows, and a metal-bound door of heavy oak, scorched but too dense to burn readily unless the spell used on it was extremely powerful, like the one I had used to seal off the vault under the remains of my castle. 

Lucca was sitting cross-legged on the floor near the patch of light admitted by one of the windows, trying to disassemble some battered and dusty mechanical object using her hands and a small screwdriver that she must have had in her pocket when she'd been captured. The Porreans had taken her helmet as well as her belt, and her hair was falling into her eyes whenever she bent forward. They'd also torn the front of her shirt open, but they didn't appear to have done anything worse. 

Her head snapped up as I approached her, and she scanned the room. I'd been careful not to make any noise, or block her light . . . perhaps she'd felt an air current, or even subconsciously sensed my aura. 

I hesitated for a long moment as she looked around, eyes probing the shadows among the empty crates at the far end of the room. It was only when she lowered her head and picked up her screwdriver again that I made my decision. 

I rearranged myself at something closer to her level, kneeling on air so as not to disturb anything on the floor, and slipped my hand carefully around near her chin, keeping it in shadow so that it wouldn't cast one itself. Her nose wrinkled, and she frowned—the faint smell of my leather glove, perhaps. _Close enough to the right position,_ I thought, and struck, covering her mouth. 

"Don't move!" I whispered into her ear as she tensed to fight me. "We can't let the Porreans know that anything is going on. Now, first of all, are you all right?" 

For a moment, I thought she wasn't going to answer me, but then her hand groped around and found the steel crescent resting against my thigh. Her eyes slid shut then, and I felt the tension against my palm shift as she nodded. I took my hand away, and she sighed softly. 

"They caught me with some kind of net thrower," she whispered. "I have rope burns, but nothing worse. How did you know to come back here from Porre, and what was that explosion earlier?" 

"Pretend you're still working on that whatever-it-is, or they may notice. I found out about the attack on Guardia while I was in Porre . . . just a little too late." And I was still trying to figure out how the Porrean Army had slipped past me on my travels without my noticing. "As for the explosion, it's probably better if I don't tell you right now—it isn't the sort of news that you'll be able to receive without a reaction, and it's imperative that the Porreans remain unaware of what I'm doing. For the same reason, I can't rescue you yet." 

"That's okay—I was working on getting out on my own." Lucca had picked up her tool again and was pretending to worry at her half-dismantled device. "From the sound of it, you've got a plan. Do I need to worry?" 

"Only about the Porreans," I whispered. _And possibly your sanity, when you discover what I've done._

"I knew it—you're going to do something horrible, aren't you? Janus, _don't_ , okay? Just don't. We'll think of something else. You've already tortured yourself enough." 

I sighed, a mere breath of air. "No matter what we try to do about the Porreans, it's going to be ugly. I've done enough horrible things in my life that one more isn't going to do me significant damage. The alternative is starting a war . . . or abandoning Guardia to them. Either way, many more people will be hurt. And there's another thing to consider. Melchior was supposed to be coming here. If he's captured as well . . . Let's just say that I don't even want to think about what the two of you could be forced to do in Porre's service." 

There was a long pause while Lucca poked blindly at the nameless device with her screwdriver. " . . . Damn," she whispered at last. "Why do you have to be _right_? Just don't get yourself killed, okay? Promise me." 

"'Horrible', not 'suicidal', remember?" I replied with a trace of amusement. "After what happened in Medina, I don't intend to get within twenty feet of a Porrean this time—or at least, not until they're ready to negotiate. Just remember, if you happen to break out at the wrong time, that they won't attack anyone who isn't either in a Porrean uniform or wearing an Element Grid." 

"'They' who? Janus—" 

"I'll see you in a few hours at most," I told her. What else? Ah . . . "Don't worry." 

"Don't _worry_?!" Lucca breathed fiercely. "How am I not supposed to . . . ? Get out of here before I stick this thing in your eye, damn it!" She waved the screwdriver menacingly, blinking suspiciously all the while. 

I rose to my feet and teleported away—away from the town entirely, truth be told, because I'd already seen everything that I needed to. The Porreans were roaming the streets, and the citizens were mostly under house arrest, not likely to take collateral damage when the Porreans started fighting back against what I had in mind. 

* * *

"Is this what you wanted, your Highness?" I was back at the ruins of the castle, and the sergeant was pointing at the Porrean corpses that he and his men had liberated from the rubble. There were about twenty of them, laid out neatly, side- by-side on the ground away from the tumbled stones . . . and away from the Guardian corpses that had also been recovered, I noted. 

I nodded. "More of them would be useful, however. Keep working on it until sunset. I'll be . . . nearby." 

I appropriated a broken knife and an Element Grid that had belonged to one of the dead Porreans and found myself a comfortable spot in a tree, sitting on a thick limb with my back to the trunk. I found a branch that was about as thick around as I could encompass with my thumb and forefinger, and—with the help of a little magic—broke it off and trimmed it of extraneous matter. Then I set to work with the knife. 

Carving runes with magic is unsafe, you see. It tends to set up a peculiar sort of feedback effect, where the spell endowed by the runes takes on certain aspects of the spell used to carve them. Generally, that isn't desirable. 

By the time I was done, the sun was hovering close to the horizon, and I had a three-foot-long, slightly tapering maple wand with a neat spiral of runes engraved into it and a fragment from the Element Grid wrapped around the narrower end. I held it in my left hand as I dropped from the tree and strode back toward the remains of the castle. 

Thirty-seven Porrean corpses, plus fragments of several more, were now laid out in four neat rows. With a little luck, that would be sufficient. 

"Do you know where the Ashtears' home is?" I said to the sergeant by way of greeting. 

"You mean Prince Crono's friend, Miss Lucca? Yes, your Highness." 

"Good. Take your men there. Guard your future queen . . . and if something goes wrong and I'm unable to return there by mid-morning, send someone to scout out the town. _Cautiously,_ " I emphasized. 

I was unlikely to exhaust myself, magically or otherwise, in what was to come, but bad luck was always a possibility, and I had to plan for it to the extent that I could. 

The sergeant saluted and led his men away, leaving me standing among the corpses. 

_Another sunset,_ I thought, tapping the maple wand against my leg, where it left a sticky sap-stain behind for a moment before the spells on my trousers cleaned it up. _And how many more will there be before I find you again, Schala? I am getting so very tired of this empty life . . ._

I shook my head slightly as I realized that that sounded vaguely suicidal. Appropriate to the blood-red lighting, corpses, and broken castle perhaps, but hopefully I wasn't yet so far gone. Believing that my life was of lower value than fulfilling my purposes was one thing, but actively seeking death was quite another. 

I waited until I was certain that the guards were a fair distance from the area. Then I went over to the first corpse and began. 

Necromancy is one of the more disturbing aspects of shadow magic, although it isn't nearly as horrific as most people make it out to be. Practicing it successfully requires one to accept that the dead are simply dolls made of meat, connected to the people they once were only by appearance—an understanding that I'd had to force on myself after Ozzie and Caeron had first compelled me into cannibalism, lest I go mad. Necromantic spells do not call the soul back to the body; none of my experimentation was ever able to achieve that, although I had once or twice been able to spark some portion of a dead brain using shadow energy and call up a trace of memory or personality . . . but even the revenants on whom I had practiced that technique had never shown any evidence of being self- willed. 

Nevertheless, I intend to see to it that when I die, my body is thoroughly destroyed. The thought of a creature which is a feeble imitation of me acting under someone else's command is . . . repugnant. 

What I did to the dead Porreans was merely the crudest of animations, however. The creatures that rose at my command, bound to the authority of the wand, were only zombies, pre-programmed to follow the commands that I had written out. _Attack living creatures wearing Porrean uniforms or Element Grids. Follow the person carrying the wand if you can see him and there is no one nearby to attack._ There was only one thing about the zombie spell that wasn't simple, and that was the contagion: anyone killed by these creatures would also fall under the control of the wand. 

Once I had them all animate, pulling them together into a group was just a matter of standing in one place for a little while and letting them shamble toward me. Then I rose from the ground and began the slow flight back to Truce. 

The stars were out by the time we reached the edge of town. Once I heard the shouts of the Porrean sentries, I teleported to the roof of a building near the central square, and settled myself there to watch the zombies do their job . . . and listen to the Black Wind moan and chatter. 

It was ugly, but then I'd been expecting that. In the darkness, the sentries at first thought that the undead were their own people, survivors of the castle disaster coming back, and didn't realize their mistake until two men had died. The survivors then pulled out their guns and started filling the zombies with bullets, but of course the latter couldn't feel them. And then the men that the undead had killed rose up to join them . . . 

It was a scene that repeated itself all over town as each little group of Porreans encountered the zombies for the first time. Confusion and horror as they realized they were fighting unstoppable monsters, and seeing their own dead rise up to become more of the same . . . Hearing the commotion outside, the ordinary citizens of Truce were coming to the windows and throwing back curtains and shutters, only to witness . . . that. The faces that I could see from my comfortable perch showed shock, disgust, and fear in roughly equal measure—even those that weren't out on the streets with the zombies. 

After a couple of hours, the Porreans seemed to scrape together enough common sense to establish barricades behind which they could hide while they shot or chopped the zombies to pieces, and casualties became much less frequent. However, there were now at least two hundred of the undead, and it took a lot of shots to dismember one of them to the point that it was no longer dangerous. Fireballs from their element grids worked better, but those seemed to take some time to recharge, and the fire never burned for long. Sooner or later, the Porreans would run out of ammunition and become prey again . . . but there was a way I could speed things up. 

I stood up and teleported myself to the common room of the inn, taking care to place myself _on_ the counter, which was the one place I was fairly certain that no one would be standing. It was an indication of the chaotic state of the place that no one seemed to notice my presence at first. Besides all the people running to and fro, pushing pins into the maps on the big dining table and messing with mechanical communications devices, there were a group of common soldiers entrenching themselves by the door, several exhausted messengers, and of course the commander, who was trying, bleary-eyed and with his uniform jacket hanging open, to bring order from that chaos. 

Even when I dropped to the floor and began threading my way through the Porreans, I didn't get any attention until I had to push one young man out of my path. He turned around, very likely intending to curse at me, and froze. I smirked at him and moved on as a wave of motionlessness and silence began to spread out from the two of us. 

"Twenty more of them over here—Damnit, haven't you fools gotten a message through to Company Three yet?" Perhaps the commander was too absorbed in what he was doing to notice the silence, or perhaps he just didn't care. Curious, I walked right up to the table to stand beside him and examine the topmost map: a crude sketch of the area, with dozens of pins poking out of it. Judging from their placement, the steel pins were Porreans and the brass ones were zombies. 

"No, sir, they aren't answering their— _Oh, shit!_ " Apparently, whoever was responsible for messages to Company Three had just looked up and seen me standing there. 

"What's wrong _now?_ " the commander growled, eyes still on the map. 

"Sir, he's the one from Medina!" 

"What are you babbling ab—" At last, the commander looked up, noticed me, and did a gratifying double-take. 

I gave him a pleasant smile. "If this was Company Three," I said, pointing to the cluster of steel pins with which he'd appeared to be most concerned, "they were overrun half an hour ago." 

"How did you get in here?" the man demanded. 

"It is generally less than wise to ask a mage how he does anything—if I gave you a complete and truthful answer, it might take you days to sort it out. Suffice to say that I didn't enter through the door." I heard a soft susurration coming from about eight feet back on my right, and added, "Tell your men to keep their weapons to themselves. Killing me won't rid you of the zombies. Indeed, quite the opposite: I am the only one who can stop them without chopping each one to bits individually." Absently, I tapped the maple wand, still in my left hand, against my leg. 

"Do as he says," the commander snapped, but his eyes never left me. "What do you want?" 

"Your people back on your own side of the Zenan Bridge," I said flatly. "I am tired of you constantly turning up underfoot and interfering with my business and my allies. Guardia is not, and will never be, yours." 

"And I suppose you claim to have the authority to negotiate on Guardia's behalf." 

It was an interesting attempt to stall, anyway. "For the time being, I am Princess Leene's guardian." Crono had placed his daughter in my hands, so it was no exaggeration. "With the rest of the royal family dead, that effectively makes me her regent, and the highest authority in Guardia. You do realize that every minute we waste on this sees more of your men dead fighting their comrades' corpses, do you not?" 

The Porrean commander grimaced. "What do you want us to do, exactly?" 

"You and your men are to discard your weapons, Element Grids, armour, and uniform jackets, and head home as quickly as you can march." 

"Our _jackets?_ " 

"The zombies will attack anyone that looks like a member of your army even if he isn't armed," I said, then added, "Didn't I mention that they would be following you?" 

I won't claim that there were no further protests, but they were both obvious and repetitious, and in the chill hour before dawn, I was able to gather the zombies together at the western edge of town, and then teleport back to the Ashtears'. 

"Sir!" One of the survivors of the castle guard was guarding the door. The lantern resting on the porch by his ankle made shadows waver across his face as he saluted me. 

"Get your sergeant," I told him. "I'll wait here." 

"Yes, sir." The man ducked inside. I leaned against the porch railing and waited. 

"Prince Janus?" When the sergeant appeared, he was shirtless and scratching his sagging abdomen, but I wasn't about to complain. 

"Take this," I told him, holding out the maple wand. "In a few hours, the Porreans will be pulling out of Truce. You're to get ten men or so together and follow them as far as the Zenan Bridge. Carry that openly when you go. Use the zombies as pack animals if you like—they won't mind. Once you reach Zenan, wait until the Porreans have crossed to the other side, then head back in this direction for a day or so, until you're well out of sight of them. After that, you can destroy the wand— burn it, if necessary." 

"Yes, sir. Um, if I may ask . . . _zombies?_ " 

"We needed more men to dislodge the Porreans," I said wearily. "I decided that using their own dead for the purpose was maximally efficient, if ugly. You might want to choose men who will be able to keep their minds on business with two or three hundred rotting corpses marching along behind them, though." 

The sergeant was looking as though he might have a little trouble with that himself, but he didn't say anything except, "Yes, sir. I'll . . . go wake the men . . ." 

"Go," I said, but the man was already edging away from me in a manner that hinted that he thought I was diseased. _Mentally diseased, perhaps,_ I thought with a certain amount of black humour. And by human standards, I probably am. After all, my upbringing would have driven a truly sane person mad. 

Just to be on the safe side, I spent the rest of the night on the roof, though. Frightened, confused humans often forget who their friends are, and I had no desire to wake up to discover that someone had thrust a dagger between my ribs. 

I returned to Truce after snatching a few hours' sleep to discover that the town was closed up tight, windows shuttered and doors locked. The only remaining evidence of the Porreans was a series of small piles of gear lying in the streets: guns, knives, Element Grids and uniforms lying where they had been discarded. Collecting them was going to be a long task, and I sighed softly in irritation—one would think that they would have been a bit better organized. 

Lucca hadn't succeeded in breaking out of her cellar, or perhaps she'd stopped trying when she'd heard the commotion outside. With the guards gone from the door, a few words and a touch got it open, and I summoned pale etheric light with an absent gesture as I stepped inside. 

Lucca was curled up on the floor beside the same apparatus she'd been working on when I'd visited her the previous afternoon, now in an advanced state of dismantlement. When I crouched beside her, I could see streaks on her face . . . tear tracks? Had she been crying? 

I brought the light down closer so that I could get a better look, but that made her stir. "Mrph. Janus?" Even the soft etheric illumination was enough to make her blink and squint. "Is it over?" 

I nodded. "The Porreans should be at least an hour's march out of town by now." 

"Oh, good." She sat up and rubbed her eyes. "I saw some of the fighting through the window. I'd . . . forgotten you could do things like that. Well, okay, I _wanted_ to forget. Walking corpses are icky." 

"They're no more than dolls made of meat," I said. "Not really so different from your . . . _robots._ " It had taken me a moment to remember the peculiar word. "Except that they have even less will of their own." 

"But still, dead bodies . . ." 

I'd been anticipating a conversation like this for a while, so why did I feel so uncertain of myself now that it had come? "Would it have been better to attempt to retake Truce with living human troops? Even if we could have found enough of them quickly enough, many would have been killed by the Porreans. This way, no one needed to get hurt." 

"You're not happy about it either, are you?" 

I shrugged. No, I wasn't happy. I'd never found necromancy a comfortable thing, even though I knew quite thoroughly what it _wasn't_. Perhaps working with corpses woke some subtle racial memory in me, deep below the level of conscious thought. 

"I guess that's proof that you still are human, after all," Lucca said quietly. 

"There are sanitation concerns associated with having that much rotting meat around," I said. 

"Okay, okay, I don't have the energy to argue with you right now. If it's so important to you to pretend to be tough, go ahead and pretend. I just want to go home and have a bath and a decent meal and make sure that my parents and Kid are all right . . . What? What is it?" 

"Taban . . . didn't make it." I tried to phrase it as gently as I knew how. 

Lucca's eyes widened, and she froze, as though unable to absorb the words. 

"Neither did Crono and Marle," I added, deciding to get it all over with at once. "Your red-headed friend went slightly mad with grief after his wife died and pulled Guardia Castle down on top of himself and a hundred or so Porreans." 

"Wh-what? That's impossible! Crono wouldn't have . . . wouldn't have . . . And Dad . . . Why? Why does it have to be like this? When we went after Lavos, no one died for good, and this is so much _smaller_ than that! _Why?!_ " 

The first blow against my armour took my by surprise, but I controlled my initial reaction, because it clearly wasn't designed to hurt. A few weak punches against my chest, and then Lucca wrapped her arms around my torso, pressed her face into a fold of my cloak, and started to cry. Vague childhood memories prompted me to put my arms around her in turn and hold her until she ran out of tears. 

I couldn't help but contemplate her words as I did so, though. _No one died for good . . ._ except most of the population of Zeal and very likely many of those who had been living in the future that we'd invalidated by our actions. It was so easy for her to shrug off those deaths, just as it was easy for me to shrug off the deaths of the people I had killed in the sixth century. They weren't friends and we hadn't really known them, so they didn't matter—we couldn't _let_ them matter, or we would both go mad. 

Ironic, that it was things like this that made me think that perhaps I was human after all. 

* * *

"And so where is this 'Prince' Janus? He has certainly kept us waiting long enough!" And dukes were not normally kept waiting, the man's tone said. 

It had been some ten days since the fall of Guardia Castle, and sixteen people were packed into the common room of the Truce inn: five Guardian nobles, the highest-ranking officers of the beleaguered nation's army and navy and their aides, the mayor of Truce, Lucca, Lara—who was sitting off to one side with little Princess Leene—Melchior, the Mystic Mage Slash, and myself . . . although most of the others were unaware of my presence. I'd wanted to see who among the newcomers had something resembling intelligence, and who was just a useless politicking parasite. 

The nobles had begun showing up three days after the disaster, before the Porreans had made it back over the Zenan Bridge. Naturally, they all had their own agendas, and they bickered constantly . . . which had so far kept any of them from mounting an effective attack on me. The fact that any will that the old king might have made out, and therefore any indication of who would have been Leene's legitimate regent had I not stepped in, was buried under several tons of rubble probably didn't hurt matters either. Sooner or later, though, they were going to get themselves sorted out, and I wanted them firmly under my thumb before that happened. 

Of the four military men, the naval commander was the one I was most worried about. The army commander had been at Zenan Bridge when the Porreans had come through on their way to Truce, and he'd crossed paths with the procession of Porreans, guards, and zombies on his way here and so had some idea of what he was dealing with. The navy man had been up in the northern islands during the attack, and had seen nothing of the Porreans but what they had left behind. 

And so, I was hardly surprised that he was the one who said, "If he doesn't show up soon, I'm leaving." 

"Earic, I don't think it's a good idea to irritate a necromancer," the army commander said. 

Earic scowled and stroked his mustache. "Necromancer, my nether parts! There's no such thing! I don't know what it was that you saw, but I can't believe it was an army of corpses. And even if it was, where are they now?" 

"Once I had no more need of them, I permitted them to go back to being dead," I said, and smiled thinly as several heads whipped 'round, trying vainly to detect the source of my voice. I waited until they'd all had time to search the room before breathing the word that dissolved my spell of invisibility and revealing that I was, in fact, standing at the head of the table, between Melchior and Lucca. "I arranged to have them left in the woods between here and the Zenan bridge, to reduce both the likelihood of contagion and the amount of labour that would otherwise have to be spent on grave-digging," I added, baring my fangs. I had thought long and hard about the possibilities, and in the end I'd chosen to appear in my proper persona, rather than as my more-human illusion . . . or even an impersonation of Crono, which had been another option I'd considered, but I'd decided in the end that there were too many potential pitfalls there. 

Three of the nobles, plus the naval commander's aide, cringed back and seemed to want to hide under the table. The others were made of sterner stuff, but only one of those present seemed to be genuinely happy to see me. 

"Lord Magus!" Slash greeted. I was probably the only one there who recognized his expression as a Mage's version of a grin. 

"Magus?!" That was the duke again. He turned to me. "There appears to be some question as to your identity . . . sir." Trust a noble to know how to turn a word of respect into a sneer. 

I gave him a level look. "There is none. My name is Janus Zeal. However, four hundred years ago, under the alias of Magus, I led the Mystic Race in their war against Guardia. The only reason that this kingdom is still here is that I was preoccupied at the time with matters of a far larger scope. Prince Crono and Princess Nadia assisted me in settling some of those matters, and Crono called in the favour I owed them when he placed their daughter in my keeping. In all honesty, I will be relieved when Guardia is stable again and I can depart, as this matter has interrupted a task of great personal importance to me." 

"And do you have any witnesses to prove that you—" 

I snapped three words in High Zeala and slammed my gloved hand down on the table, which split neatly down the middle. The halves remained standing for a moment, then began to teeter and fall outwards, causing everyone to jump backward. Most of them cursed as well, but Lucca was grinning. Slash, with his short legs, barely escaped getting himself pinned to the floor. Fortunately, he didn't seem to mind. It was, however, very likely a good thing that Lara hadn't actually been _at_ the table. 

"There were a dozen other people in the room when I spoke to Prince Crono," I said into the silence that followed. "A few of them are even still alive, despite everything that has recently happened in this area." I was being . . . distinctly unsubtle, and knew it, but until I knew more about these people, intimidation would be easier than delicate manipulation. "I have no intention of, and no interest in, usurping the throne of Guardia. I suggest that before you waste your time fighting me rather than the Porreans, you consider whether or not there is anyone else among your number whom you could genuinely believe if he said that." 

That got their attention. The nobles even exchanged speculative glances. 

"What are your plans, sir?" That was the army commander. 

"How long do you believe we have before the Porreans regroup?" I had my own estimate, of course, but it was based on what I would have expected of sixth-century Guardians. This man knew the Porreans better. 

A thoughtful frown. "It could be anything from two weeks to a month—they'll need to resupply, of course, and then the report has to work its way up the chain of command to someone who doesn't believe in zombies. And, of course, the credibility of their commander factors into that, too, although he's considered a solid man. If we're lucky, they may not come back at all." 

"We have to plan for the worst case," I said. "Do we have enough forces left to completely secure this end of the Zenan Bridge within two weeks?" 

The army commander swallowed. "Against everything the Porreans could bring to bear? No, sir. We'd need double what we have." 

I waved away his nervousness. "Don't worry—I expected as much. Slash, how many of your people have any combat ability at all?" 

The Mage shrugged. "We've been at peace for so long . . . Since what happened to Medina, I and a few others have been studying what information we still have on combat magic, but half the spells . . . simply don't work, and I'm not sure I'd be able to cast even the ones that do in a real fight." 

"I can provide you with more accurate grimoires," I said. "How quickly we can remedy your lack of experience will depend on the Porreans." 

"You can't seriously be intending to bring more magic into this!" That damned duke . . . the nobles seemed to have chosen him as their spokesman. 

I gave him a cool look. "Why not?" 

"Because it isn't _right!_ Using magic in war is the ultimate dishonour!" 

"The Porreans are not giving out sportsmanship prizes," I snapped. "And they seem willing enough to risk 'ultimate dishonour' with those Element Grids of theirs. True magic is the only asset we have in this mess, and not only do I intend to send as many of the Mystics as are willing with the army, I also intend to train up as many human mages as possible, and distribute the captured Element Grids to the army if we can figure out how to use them. I will not lose Guardia because of your scruples." 

"But—" 

"Have you ever fought a war?" I asked. "A _real_ war, not just a series of skirmishes with the Porreans." 

"That is irrelevant!" The duke was turning red, and even a couple of the other nobles were looking at him in disgust. 

"Jeron, shut up." I couldn't even be certain which one of them that was, because they'd all turned away from me to stare at him. "No one except you believes in that 'death before dishonour' nonsense anymore anyway. I'd rather keep my estates by whatever means necessary." 

"And so you're going to follow this . . . this . . ." 

A couple of the other nobles shuffled their feet—and the naval commander as well—but the second noble spoke again. "He seems to have a plan, which is more than the rest of us have managed. I'm willing to give him a bit of rope, and see if he uses it to hang himself or to pull us out of this mess." 

The army commander cleared his throat. "Sir, what do we need to do?" 

"Decide how you intend to assimilate the Mystics," I said. "And we need to know how your men will react to the concept of magic in general—judging from what I've seen in and around Truce, about one of them in every eight is likely to be a potential mage, like your aide." 

The stiff-backed younger man in the buff army uniform blinked. "Me, your Highness?" 

Melchior stirred for the first time. "Prince Janus is correct: you're a latent ice-user, as Princess Nadia was. You will have to decide for yourself whether that ability is something you want to unlock and train." 

The aide developed a thoughtful look. So did his commander. 

"I assume that some of your people can at least read auras?" I said to Slash, and received a nod. "Good. There will be a great deal of work for them in the near future. As for the rest of you . . . We will need to guard against a naval attack, which, if it comes, will be from the east and south. Deploy your ships appropriately, and send the relevant plans to me for review," I told the naval commander—with a little magical augmentation, I would have been able to throw the man further than I trusted him. "Melchior, I need to know how many of the Mystics have the skills necessary to work an unfamiliar catalysis spell with minimal training." The old man nodded. "Lucca, while I will certainly be grateful for any useful inventions you are able to produce, your most important task at the moment is to guard Princess Leene." _And Kid . . ._ but I wasn't about to say that here. "Sir mayor . . . although it will hopefully be unnecessary, I need you to have the citizens of Truce ready for evacuation. If the Porreans return here in too much force for us to turn them away, I don't want them to capture so much as a pet puppy. And as for you five . . ." I glanced sharply at each of the nobles in turn. "If you know of any treaty, negotiation in progress, or personal understanding over a game of cards between the throne of Guardia and some country other than Porre, I want you to think about how to exploit it, since I am unfortunately not very knowledgeable about the state of international relations in this time period. That will be all." 

I spoke three words of High Zeala and was gone before I could be bombarded with questions or demands. 

* * *

"I'd hoped that I would find you here." 

I looked up from the grimoire I'd been perusing with a certain degree of irritation, and Alfador shifted in my lap. I stroked him absently. "It's more comfortable than the roof, and no one seems to want to approach a sickroom unless he has business there." And if I hadn't been able to identify Melchior from the other side of the door by his aura, I probably would have headed for the roof the moment I'd sensed someone outside. "Do you need to talk to me about something, or did you just come here to check on Gil?" 

"Both. In answer to the question you asked at the conference this morning: twenty-three, assuming a non- elemental spell of power comparable to the normal infant catalysis spell." 

_Twenty-three._ I frowned. "I was hoping for at least twice that, but I suppose it can't be helped." 

Melchior shrugged. "Not all of the Mystics came with me—a few families headed for Choras, and several more decided that El Nido would be a good place to wait all this out. One adult Mystic in every ten isn't too bad, considering that many of them have very little power." 

I muttered a curse. "I've been dealing far too much in statistics lately. One in eight . . . one in ten . . ." 

"In any case, if you can teach me that spell now, I can get started passing it on to them." 

I smiled thinly. "I don't know it. Yet. I intend to go out quietly, tonight, to visit the one person I know of who does." Truth be told, I'd been hoping that Melchior knew such a spell himself, as it would have saved me a lot of trouble, but if the other method was the only way . . . "I've already made preparations, in between the nobles' bribe attempts." 

"Was _that_ why you turned that baron into a centipede?" 

I waved my hand. "It was only a temporary spell, and judging from the tender care his valet was giving him when I last saw him he'll be safe enough until it wears off tomorrow morning. He was the third one to approach me, you see, and I was getting a bit irritable. Are you going to check on Gil?" 

"Since I'm here, I suppose I might as well." 

That drew my attention as well as his to the small, pale, still figure lying on the bed. Despite everything we could do, Gil hadn't yet woken. According to Melchior, the boy's ill- advised attempts at casting fire-elemental spells had caused him both physical and mental damage, and the Guru could only repair the first. I might have been less inclined to believe him if he hadn't been the one spending hours here using his powers to coax the unconscious boy to swallow, spoonful by spoonful, the water and chicken broth that were keeping him alive—a tedious and unpleasant job at best. 

Melchior sat down on the edge of the bed and placed one hand on the boy's forehead, murmuring a diagnostic spell. After a moment he shook his head, which I translated to mean, _no change_. 

"What are the chances of him recovering spontaneously at this point?" I asked, suspecting that I knew the answer. The Black Wind was louder in here than it was anywhere else in Guardia. 

"Almost nil," the old man admitted. "You can see for yourself that he still has no aura. The very energies he needs to heal himself inside are draining away as fast as he can produce them. At this point, I'm starting to wonder if we're doing him a service by keeping him alive." 

"Then there's no way at all to save him?" I asked sharply. 

Melchior shrugged. "He needs someone who is trained in lightning-based medical spells, and we have none. There isn't a single Mystic who's up to the required standard." The old man hesitated, then added, "If you'll pardon me for saying so, I'm surprised that this matters so much to you. I had . . . been under the impression that you were . . . more hard- hearted." 

I scowled and turned my face away from him so that he couldn't see the expression in my eyes. "Gil is—potentially, at least—symbolic. If I allow my apprentice to die, how many of the Guardian soldiers will trust me not to risk their lives unnecessarily? And at the moment, I desperately need that trust, or at least the benefit of the doubt. My reputation here is . . . less than wonderful, overall. Right now, I have everyone terrified of me, but that will wear off soon enough, and if I'm to continue commanding them then . . ." I shrugged expressively. Melchior had lived in the palace of Zeal longer than I had—he knew politics. 

"And I expect that people who couldn't see the way your aura twists whenever you talk about this lad might even believe that was your only concern." 

I made no reply—I wasn't about to admit that I was having an increasingly difficult time hardening myself against those few stubborn people who dared to worm their way under my skin, especially when I didn't have the excuse of affection getting in the way of my purposes. 

"That grimoire on your lap is of lightning . . . does it contain . . . ?" 

"Healing spells, yes." But I shut the book firmly. "They aren't beyond my ability to work, as such, but applying them correctly appears to take, as you suggested, considerable experience. They're all larded with warnings about potential side effects. And furthermore, some of the spells have been recopied at least once by someone who didn't entirely understand them— I've already spotted three clear errors. I don't dare take the risk, if there's a better way." 

"And you think you have one?" 

"You say that we need someone trained in the spells for mind-healing," I said, instead of answering him directly. "If you had access to all of history, who would you choose to have look at him?" 

"That's easy—Ascelus, who lived in Kajar in your great-grandfather's day. A few others in subsequent generations were able to equal his abilities in the medical field, but to my knowledge, they were never surpassed." Then Melchior's breath hitched. "Wait a moment—do you mean that you can actually—" 

"I have to go to the End of Time in any case, since the only magical catalysis spell I know of that works on adults is the one Spekkio used on Crono and the others," I said. "From there, Zeal is only one more spell away, although I may have to rest for a time before I can go there." 

" _Take me with you!_ " 

I stared. I'd never known the old man to be so passionate about anything, not even his experiments . . . not even his own survival, for that matter. But the only possible response to his request was: "No." 

"Prince Janus, please! I've been waiting so long—" 

I gave him a cold look. "Every action we take in the past risks altering it. Crono and the others are products of a world in which Zeal fell, and I refuse to even create the possibility of a world where they don't exist. I _won't_ have Lavos revived just because one old man wanted to go home. I'm taking a risk even by taking Gil to this Ascelus, and I intend telling him as little as possible about where we came from and making contact with as few other people as I can manage. You stay here." 

Melchior's aura was streaked with ugly marks of sorrow and despair. "Very well, I suppose I wasn't looking at the big picture," he said in a very flat tone of voice. 

"And if you kill yourself while I'm away, I'll reanimate your corpse and use it as a footstool," I warned. 

" _Kill_ mys—Oh, no, no, I wasn't thinking along those lines! I've become . . . rather fond of this time and place, actually. It's just that . . . perhaps, since you're able to go back, you can't understand . . ." 

"You ignorant old fool," I snarled, suddenly enraged. "I may be able to transport myself through time, but do you honestly believe I can _go back_? The creature I have become no more belongs in Zeal than it belongs anywhere else. It's like . . . being trapped on the other side of an unbreakable window . . . able to see everything that I ever desired, and yet not being able to touch . . . I would prefer—ten thousand times over!—to stay here rather than torturing myself that way again." Then I shut my mouth so firmly that my fangs drew blood from my lower lip, appalled that I'd spoken so freely. 

Alfador chose that moment to paw at my arm, then thrust his head against my gloved palm. _Such a beautifully timed distraction,_ I thought, stroking him. _I wonder sometimes just how much you understand, old friend._

"I'm sorry," Melchior said. "You're normally so confident and . . . reserved . . . that it can be difficult for me to remember what kind of hell you've been through." 

"I don't want your sympathy, either," I growled. "I made my choices, and the results have so far been successful ones, if painful. I have no regrets." 

"None at all?" 

I looked down at my lap and allowed Alfador's green gaze to lock with mine, since it was an excuse not to look at Melchior. "Perhaps one: that my stupidity at the Ocean Palace weakened me to the point that I couldn't rescue Schala. Nothing else." 

"I'm sure she's all right, wherever she is. Your sister is a much stronger person than you give her credit for." 

"Old man, wherever she is, she is _not_ 'all right'. Do you honestly think she would have placed her daughter under someone else's care if she'd had a choice? I'm certain that she's alive, but anything more than that is sheer speculation." 

"I'm surprised you've never returned to the Ocean Palace to see what happened to her." 

I grimaced. "I can't guarantee my own safety if I try that. Since the Ocean Palace was barred against direct teleportation from the outside, the only way for me to get in would be to use the Skyway in the true Palace. I can't risk upsetting the past, so I would have to do that while Zeal was in the very act of falling, and after Lavos had drained my past self, so that he wouldn't sense my aura. Under those conditions, I might not even be able to reach Schala, much less do it in time. And while I may not consider my life to be of value as such, throwing it away would rob me of the ability to act." 

"Couldn't you move there directly through time?" 

"Then I really _would_ die," I said. "That spell drains me utterly, even with these, which are the most efficient magical force multipliers I've ever encountered." I touched one of the earrings I'd inherited from my father—a deceptively plain loop of platinum. The runes etched into them had been worked so finely that they couldn't even be seen without a magnification spell. "Even with access to what amounts to eight times my natural endowment of magic, the damned thing leaves me with a drain-headache. An elixir would fix that, of course, but would I have time to drink one?" 

"You've never struck me as being a cautious person, either." 

"I wouldn't call it caution so much as intelligent action. If I'm going to risk everything on a throw of the dice, I'm damned well going to ensure that they're loaded in my favour. Anything else is stupid and irresponsible. I don't believe in leaving anything to chance if I can help it." 

Melchior turned to look at Gil again. " . . . When will you be leaving?" he asked. 

"In a few hours. I want to wait for everyone else to settle in for the night." Having someone catch me drawing the magic circle would require more explanations than I cared to make. "With any luck, this will all be over with by dawn." 

* * *

The End of Time hadn't changed . . . but then, it would have been strange if it had. The quilt in which I'd wrapped Gil, who was a limp weight in my arms, was incongruously bright and festive against its current dull background. 

I laid the unconscious boy gently on the ground near the railing, knowing that I was about to take a dangerous risk. If I didn't survive the upcoming confrontation he would remain here, suspended between life and death in the peculiar timelessness of this place, for who knew how long . . . but even that was marginally better than dying. 

I made use of the crystal half-globe on the table, and walked past a snoring Gaspar to open the peculiar door at the side of the platform that appeared to lead into nothing. Of course, it actually opened into a small, stone-floored room that otherwise appeared to be floating in a void even more complete than encompassed the rest of the End of Time. I'd long since given up trying to make sense of it all. 

The pink Nu-like creature at the center of the room blinked mildly at me as I closed the door. "Magus, wasn't it? What are you doing here?" 

"First of all, drop the act," I said flatly. 

"Act? What act?" 

"I can't help it if Crono and his friends were too blind to notice that you're a composite creature, but the same trick won't work on me." 

"You really don't have any sense of humour, do you?" 

"It merely doesn't extend to pratfalls and juvenile deceptions," I snapped. "Reveal yourself. Now. Or I'll force you to do so." 

"Are you so sure you could?" 

I gave him my best cold, sneering, evil-wizard look. Spekkio chuckled, but he also raised his arms and murmured a word, and then there was no pink Nu there, just a ball of white light. It split into six lights of distinct colours—yellow, red, green, two different blues, and a deep violet that was almost more darkness than light—which arranged themselves around the edges of the room and then solidified into different creatures, ranging from a giant frog to that same pink Nu. 

"What gave us away?" It was the inflated blue-purple dream-creature with the lightning-user's aura who asked that. 

"Three things," I replied. "First of all, your combined aura was such a muddle that I couldn't read it. I found that unusual. Secondly, you cast spells of five different elements in my presence, without using talismans or elemental cloaking, which would normally be impossible." 

"A god might do such a thing," the wind-auraed Kilwalla pointed out. 

"And that was the third thing," I said with a fang- baring smile. "Having been a god myself, I just don't believe in creatures not subject to the normal magical laws. The only way you could have done what you were doing was for there to be more than one of you—one for each element you demonstrated mastery of. At least five separate beings, although I suppose you would have used wind magic as well, if you'd thought it would be effective." 

"I suppose we'll have to be more careful around mages of your caliber," the pink Nu said. "Although there can't be many others, given how few shadow-users survive to maturity." 

"I doubt you'll ever encounter another," I replied. 

"You didn't come here just to tell us that you'd found us out," observed the ogre. "What do you want?" 

There was no point in mincing words. "The catalysis spell that you used on Crono and the others." 

"Whoa," said the dream-creature. "You're certainly ambitious." 

"Was that a 'no' I heard?" Anyone with sense would be able to tell that that soft tone of voice was dangerous, coming from a man like me. 

"I'm afraid so," the Nu said. "We considered the consequences very carefully before letting even a little magic loose into the world after the Fall of Zeal. Letting you do it indiscriminately would be—" 

"Then you leave me no choice." I wasn't about to waste my time listening to the creature's platitudes. Instead, I reached into the deepest pocket of my cloak and pulled out a dull black rod, perhaps as thick as my finger and as long as my hand. I'd taken it from the sealed section of the old Mystic armoury hoping that I would be able to return it to its place without showing it to anyone else, much less using it. 

Spekkio—all six of him—stared at me. "A . . . talisman?" the frog asked tentatively. 

"More like a bomb," I said, extending a little of my power into it. Violet runes flared ominously up and down its length. "An underpowered test version of this spell once lowered the world's sea level by several inches, when I set it off over open ocean. I barely managed to get out of range before it consumed me as well. If I have to set it off here . . . let's just say that I hope that door is more than just the slab of wood that it appears to be, because Gaspar doesn't particularly deserve to be annihilated along with you." 

"This is so important to you that you'd kill yourself over it?" the pink Nu asked. 

I smiled thinly. "I think I have a way to protect myself . . . although it has, for obvious reasons, never been tested. Either way, you'll never know. And I'm in too much of a hurry to waste time grinding you down by more conventional means." 

Was Spekkio bright enough to know I was bluffing? My entire strategy hinged on him—them—thinking that I was serious. Hopefully, the ominous power of the spell that was stirring inside the rod would be distracting enough for him to give me the benefit of the doubt. 

We stared at each other over the glowing rod for several seconds, then I spoke a short phrase in High Zeala, waking a second series of runes, which overlaid the first group in eye-searing white. 

It was as far as I could safely take matters. If I used the third invocation, the nameless, uncontrollable spell would go off and very likely kill everyone in the room, including me. Throwing all my power into a shielding spell _might_ be enough to save me. It also might not. On that long ago day in the year 598, I hadn't been willing to chance it. I hadn't even been willing to invoke this spell against Lavos: the risk of it killing me before I could be sure I had finished that _creature_ had been too great, and so I'd left the rods in the armoury. 

The pink Nu licked its lips, a nervous mannerism I had never seen in a true Nu, and said, "All right. We surrender. Now negate that . . . thing . . . before it destroys this place!" 

That required several sentences, and touches to three of the half-hidden first series of runes, before the light faded from the rod. I slipped it back into my pocket and focussed my eyes expectantly on the pink Nu, which seemed to be in charge of this motley grouping of monsters. 

"We'll teach it to you," it said, looking as unhappy as something with a Nu's inexpressive face could manage. 

When I pulled a pen and a small book with a black binding from another inner pocket, all of Spekkio's parts grimaced or made uncomfortable noises. Had they honestly thought I wasn't going to take notes? Or perhaps they'd been intending to lie to me about the spell, and then blame my imperfect memory when I came back to confront them about it. 

Interestingly, their description bore only the faintest resemblance to the normal infant catalysis spell. The power requirement wasn't especially high . . . but it was complex. Orders of magnitude worse than what I had expected. And lightning-elemental. 

When they were done detailing the casting method, I flipped back over the pages on which I'd just finished scribbling notes and diagrams, and tried to assemble the spell into a coherent whole in my mind. Understanding came slowly. This was more than just a simple catalysis spell, and it was in two intertwined parts that had been carefully designed to work together. The second and more complex portion of it was designed to set up certain protocols inside the recipient's subconscious mind . . . 

"So _that's_ why!" I said aloud. I had always wondered how Crono and the others could cast spells when none of them had any magical education or even more than the faintest idea of what they were doing, and the answer was now laid out in front of me. It was almost as though Spekkio's spell was intended to make the target into a living talisman . . . 

Suddenly, I realized something else about the spell: the identity of its creator. Research magicians tend to have distinctive, personalized methods of doing things, and this spell, with its elegant structure, was no exception. Although if I hadn't had the opportunity to study a few examples of his work during my masquerade as the Prophet, I might not have recognized it. 

"Belthasar," I said, and the pink Nu jumped. "He must have taught this to Gaspar, who taught it to you. How very . . . convenient." _How very irritating._ I could have browbeaten the old man into divulging this without the risks involved in threatening Spekkio, if I'd known he knew. 

"That's one way of putting it," the dream-creature said. Then it made a startled noise, and all six of Spekkio's parts vanished. I frowned and checked the room over carefully, but it didn't seem like some sort of silly attempt to hide: they really were gone. Well, I had what I'd wanted from them anyway, so there was no use lingering here. 

I stepped back through the door and onto the main platform to find Gaspar awake and leaning over Gil. He looked up as I approached him, though. 

"You are a nightmare," the old man said severely, and I understood at last. 

"And Spekkio is your dream." Which would explain why one of the "God of War"'s subentities had taken the form of a dream-creature, and as for the Nu . . . had he really missed the creatures that much? "Is that why you're always asleep when I arrive here?" 

Gaspar shrugged. "This is a boring place to live, in case you hadn't noticed. Sleeping the time between visitors away is . . . easier. I never really intended to create Spekkio, but something about the nature of this place . . ." 

I couldn't understand why he stayed if he found the place so boring, but it was really none of my concern. Instead of asking, I bent down and scooped up Gil. 

"Where are you taking that child?" Gaspar asked. 

"To someone who can help him—I hope. Watch us after we leave, if you like. The spectacle of me begging a stranger for assistance should at least provide you with some meager amusement." As far as I knew, Gaspar, although his element was lightning, hadn't studied healing very much, so there was no point in asking him for help. His talents lay in other areas. 

"You say that as though you believe I should find something fulfilling in watching you being embarrassed." 

"Don't you? Most people enjoy watching the powerful humbling themselves." 

"Most people feel that the existence of someone with greater power than themselves is . . . a sort of insult, and so they find seeing such a person brought down to their level . . . comforting, but I think I'm past the delusion that the universe is supposed to be fair. No, Prince Janus, I don't take any pleasure in the idea of seeing you humiliated." 

"Then don't watch, if you prefer." Three careful steps placed me at the center of the magic circle, and I began the time travel spell without waiting for a response. 

The combination of energy drain and uneven footing at the point of our arrival nearly landed me on my back with the boy on top of me. Thorns raked at my armour as I steadied myself. I'd been intending to arrive at the _edge_ of the forest near Kajar, but I hadn't taken into account the fact that the city had grown over the course of the many years between our arrival and my birth. Muttering curses, I set my carefully wrapped burden down on the most level piece of ground in this tiny clearing, and drew out my scythe. 

I only had to cut my way through about twenty yards' worth of undergrowth, but it seemed to take forever, especially with the drain headache pounding at my temples . . . but I had no ether left that I could use to take it away, and so I endured. Then I dismissed my scythe, picked Gil up again, and carried him through the narrow green tunnel to the point where the road from Kajar to the Palace cut through the forest. Due to lack of foresight, I then had to balance him on one arm and my thigh in order to get my hood into place. 

Kajar itself, when we reached it an hour or so later . . . wasn't the city that it would be. To be exact, the central area was still made up of separate buildings instead of being the homogeneous mass that I remembered from later years, and the outlying areas were more populated, because fewer people had moved into the center as yet. Where I remembered rows of empty houses immaculately maintained by the spells worked into their walls and foundations, there were children playing and people turning to stare as I carried Gil past them. Drained as I was, I doubted that it was my aura drawing their attention, but . . . well, even my clothes weren't exactly typical of Zeal. Few people chose such dark colours, and normally only Security officers wore armour here . . . armour which looked nothing like the vest of dark chain that Melchior had given me. It would probably occasion a few moments of discussion before being forgotten. 

Melchior hadn't been able to tell me _where_ in Kajar I might find Ascelus—I was probably lucky that he'd even remembered the dates between which the lightning-user had lived in the city—so I had to consult the Nu of the City Information Bureau, located at the edge of the central section. 

"We are not permitted to give out the addresses of private citizens without a token of authority." The blue creature blinked guilelessly at me across the Information Bureau's primary service counter, which was tucked into a sort of niche on the outside of one of the towers. 

"A token of—!" I gritted my teeth and forced back the rest of what I wanted to say—self-control was always more difficult when I was tired and in pain, but it was then that it was also most essential. 

Quickly, I reviewed my options. I might ask it for the address of the nearest clinic, but that might occasion unconscionable delays while some water-using intern repeated Melchior's diagnostic work on Gil, and likely fumbled it. Attack the Nu . . . No, I wasn't in any condition to do that. Or produce something it would accept as a "token of authority"—I did have such an item, but if the news that a stranger was carrying around something that should have been safely locked up reached the Palace . . . 

. . . _they'll probably assume it was a forgery,_ I told myself. _I hope. It isn't without risk, but the other choices are worse._ And so I laid Gil down gently on the counter, with the Nu staring but not attempting to interfere, and pulled off my left glove to display my father's signet ring. 

I'd forgotten just how ridiculous Nu looked when they bowed. "Thank you, my lord. Your desired address is—" 

I memorized it, although I was only able to identify it as belonging to one of the outlying districts, and demanded a map. I laid that across the top of Gil's blankets and studied it as I pulled my glove back on. Naturally, Ascelus lived on the other side of Kajar. 

The trip there was . . . not precisely a nightmare, but certainly less than pleasant. My head was now throbbing in time with every step I took, and there were increasing numbers of people on the streets as the day wore on. Many of them stopped to stare at the spectacle of a hooded, armoured, dark-cloaked man carrying a child wrapped in a quilt through the city, but none of them tried to stop me . . . or at least, not intentionally. Staring people are often obstructive without meaning to be, and I had to move a few of them out of my way from time to time, or go around them. 

Ascelus' home was one of the neatly kept little houses right at the northern edge of the city—near the northern edge of the floating island, truth be told. I'd been expecting something more ostentatious, but it appeared that the man's only luxury was his huge garden. Portions of it probably slopped right over the cliff in back, although the vegetation concealed the edge from my present position. 

I walked through the opening in the low wall that defined the boundary of the property, and up the path to the front door, then waited. Even in my current state, I'd been able to sense the sentry spell set on the wall, and knew that Ascelus would know I was here. 

I wasn't disappointed. The door opened a few minutes later to reveal a short man in late middle age—for a Zealian, which meant that he was past his first century—who wore a beige robe. He had a round, pleasant face, greying dark hair almost as long as mine, and the aura of a lightning-user. His eyes were flint-grey and almost incongruously shrewd in their rather soft setting. 

"If you are Ascelus, I have a patient for you," I said. 

"You both seem to have come rather a long way," the short man said, his eyes skimming over me from my shadowed face to my boots, which were far sturdier than most Zealians would have bothered with. "Normally I would tell you that I'm retired and send you on your way, but under the circumstances I suppose I can at least look the lad over and make a recommendation. Come inside." 

He moved back, and I followed him through the entryway, down a hall, and into a bedroom, where he gestured for me to lay the boy on the bed. I didn't hesitate: this was what we were here for. Ascelus unwrapped part of the quilt, laid his hands on Gil, murmured a diagnostic spell . . . and winced. 

"I didn't think I would ever need to say this to anyone again, but . . . you were right to bring him here. How did this happen?" 

"I wasn't present at the time, but he seems to have been trying to cast a fire-elemental spell without knowing the technique that would have allowed him to do so safely," I said. "Given that he was trying to save both his life and those of two other people—one of them an infant—I can hardly blame him for making the attempt, but . . ." I shrugged. 

Ascelus cast another, different diagnostic. "The water-element who attended him was highly skilled—there is no physical damage remaining, only the tear in his etheric envelope . . . which has been left alone for rather too long," he said with a frown. I nodded to show that I understood—the etheric envelope encloses a mage's power and allows it to concentrate itself inside his body. It's one of the things that distinguishes even a completely drained mage from an Earthbound. "It's been gradually tearing itself wider, and it's reached the point where I can't just seal it shut—it needs to be patched with compatible etheric material. Which means that it has to come from another shadow-element. Hold out your hand, please." 

I raised my eyebrows and obeyed. Ascelus laid his hand on mine, and murmured that same diagnostic spell . . . then his eyes went wide, and he snatched his hand away. 

"What _are_ you?" 

I turned my head away, although I knew he couldn't see my expression. "I'm a fool who accidentally turned his magic on himself, once many years ago. I take it that you can't get what you need here from me." 

"Not without you ending up in the same state as this child . . . and with far less hope of recovery. I've never seen an etheric envelope as thick as yours, which means that your power level must be tremendous—what were you doing to end up so drained?—and there's no way I could re-seal it well enough to take the pressure of your full power after I cut away what I needed." 

" _Mraow!_ " 

The quilt was wriggling somewhere down near Gil's knees, which were still covered. Bemused, I folded it back, revealing a familiar tail and set of feline hindquarters. 

"Hitched a ride, did you?" I asked with a sigh as Alfador swapped ends and extricated himself from the bedding. "Idiot. I won't even ask how you managed to sneak past me." 

" _Mra,_ " Alfador replied, and rubbed himself against my leg. 

"Is that a Royal Silver?" Ascelus asked. "Where did you get him?" 

"He attached himself to me when he was still a kitten," I said with a shrug, picking the cat up. Alfador writhed in feline ecstasy as I stroked him. One paw caught in my hood and pulled it askew. 

"You might as well take that off," Ascelus said as I reached up to straighten it. "I've probed you already, so I have some idea what I'm going to see." 

"Do you?" I asked, but I pulled the damned thing off anyway—I'd never liked the way it muffled my hearing. 

Ascelus gave me the same quick, appraising once-over that he had at the door. "Well, I suppose that confirms that you're not the boy's father. What is your relation to him?" 

"I'm his teacher," I said. "His family—or at least his mother and her husband—are Earthbound. They threw him out as soon as they discovered that he . . . wasn't. He fell into my hands about a month ago." Implying that Gil was some Enlightened One's bastard fathered on an Earthbound woman (something that did happen from time to time) was as close as I could come to explaining the situation truthfully. I just hope that the boy would have the sense, when he woke up, not to contradict what I'd said. 

"Hmm. In any case, I'll put out a call and see if I can find a shadow-element who's inclined to an act of charity." 

"And if you can't?" Given how few shadow-users survived their early childhoods, it was a definite possibility. 

"If no one contacts me within a day or two, there is another method . . . but it's one that I prefer not to use, since the patient is never quite the same, afterwards. In the meanwhile, you should get some rest yourself. I have another guestroom—" 

"That won't be necessary," I said, already settling myself in the room's single, hard chair. "This will do." I stretched my legs out in front of me and let Alfador curl up in my lap. 

"All right, if that's what you prefer . . . You know, I don't think you ever gave me your name." 

"Janus," I replied briefly. "The boy is Gil." 

I closed my eyes to forestall the possibility of any further conversation, but I didn't actually allow myself to relax into sleep until I felt Ascelus' aura leave the room and heard the door shut. 

The little healer might not exactly be a threatening sort of man, but even so, I didn't entirely trust him. 

* * *

" . . . mystery." The word drifted in from the hall, drawing me back to alertness, although I kept my eyes closed. 

"A mystery?" A woman's voice, I thought—amused. 

"What else could I call them?" And that was Ascelus. " _Two_ shadow-users, one of them possibly the most powerful single mage I've ever seen—stronger than the King!—and the other an injured child. They've clearly been living on the surface, given that the man's clothes and that extraordinary blanket he had the boy wrapped in are actually _sewn_ and not magic-fused. And yet they couldn't possibly have gotten that cat there." 

"I've never heard of anyone stealing a Royal Silver." The woman again. "Why not just assume he's been to the Palace? If he's as powerful a mage as you say, he might easily have been invited there—he might even have been a candidate for the kingship." 

"Except that as far as I could tell, he doesn't seem to exist. There are _no_ records anywhere of a shadow-user that powerful—in fact, judging from the quality of his etheric envelope, even the boy may be as strong as any shadow-element on record! And this Janus' aura . . ." 

"Is there something strange about that, too?" Now the woman really did sound like she was laughing at him. 

"Well, the emotional quality of it is somewhat disturbing. I've run into a few people before who felt that much grief and rage that deeply, in the course of my job, but most of them were . . . not terribly sane. Janus must possess an extraordinarily strong mind, to remain rational under such a burden." 

My mouth curved into an ironic smile. _And here I thought that I'd shed some of that anger, since . . . Lavos._ Apparently, I'd been wrong. 

I rose to my feet. Alfador made a small, protesting noise as my movement forced him to wake and jump down. He immediately bounced back up onto the bed, turned two slow circles, kneading at the undisturbed bedding, and settled himself beside Gil. 

"—even more interested in meeting him now," the woman outside the door was saying. 

I opened the door and stepped into the hallway. "I don't remember offering to give interviews," I said crisply, putting on my best haughty noble demeanor. 

The woman was perhaps a bit younger than Ascelus, and certainly a bit taller. She wore her green hair short, rather than piled on top of her head in the elaborate court styles that I remembered so well. She also wore the pale smock and trousers of a professional healer . . . and had the aura of a water-element. Just now, she was standing frozen in the hallway with her mouth slightly open. 

After a moment, she did manage to recover herself, and said, "I'm sorry—A'lus' description . . . didn't quite prepare me for the real thing. I'm Renna, medical administrator for the Kajar district. You must be Janus." 

With ironic precision, I made the shallow bow appropriate for someone of rank being introduced to an Enlightened commoner. Renna's eyebrows shot up toward her hairline, but she returned the gesture appropriately enough. 

"I'm afraid I came here to give you some bad news," she continued after we'd both straightened up. "I've had my people contacting all the adult shadow-users we could find—seven in all—and none of them is both willing and suitable to offer himself as a source of etheric envelope material." 

I gritted my teeth against the curse that threatened to escape. "Thank you for your efforts," I said instead, and then added to Altus, "I suppose that means the only remaining choice is the alternative method you were unwilling to describe before, then." 

The short man grimaced. "Yes, I suppose it is. We should check young Gil again first, though, to make sure that he's physically able to support it." 

That meant that all of us ended up retreating into the guest room where the boy lay, and Alfador lifted his head to stare at us as we all found positions beside the bed. Renna fingered the quilt incredulously for a moment before applying a water- based diagnostic spell, presumably to supplement the lightning- based one Ascelus was casting. 

"He's clearly been well looked after," the woman said after a moment. "What do you think, A'lus? Cat?" 

"That seems to be one of the better choices," Ascelus agreed. 

"Will you two stop talking in code?" Not the most polite question, but I was running out of patience. 

"That wasn't what we intended," Ascelus said, frowning. "I would have to explain the procedure to you anyway, since it is so radical and you seem to be the boy's guardian." 

"Go on," I prompted sharply. 

The little healer's posture changed, spine straightening, shoulders pushing back slightly . . . _He's trying to look authoritative,_ I thought, vaguely amused. 

"The technique we're intending to use is called full overlay transference, and involves merging two beings and their etheric envelopes, thus overlaying a healthy etheric pattern on the damaged one. Since that effectively creates one being where there were originally two, we normally use an animal donor—to do otherwise would amount to killing a human. Unfortunately, the merger is complete and nonspecific, and the human recipient often ends up developing physical and, especially, mental traits that would normally belong to the animal donor. We try to minimize this to the extent possible, but you must understand that if this procedure is carried out, young Gil will not be the same person when he wakes up." 

"Since the alternative appears to be that he won't wake up at all, I don't see that there's any other choice," I said. 

"That's what I expected you to say, but the formalities had to be observed," Ascelus admitted. 

"So now we just have to find a cat, or some other animal with shadow-affinity," Renna added. 

" _Mrao!_ " 

"They weren't talking about you," I said to Alfador. 

To my surprise, the Royal Silver got to his feet and paced across the bed. He sat down firmly on Gil's chest. 

"It almost looks like he's trying to volunteer," Ascelus said, smiling. 

"He might be," Renna replied seriously. "Some of the work done on the Royal Silvers . . . they're much smarter than the average cat. It would be hard to tell how much he really understands." 

I picked the cat up and cradled him protectively against me. "You idiot," I murmured, for those lavender-silver ears alone. "Do you think that losing you would make me happy?" 

Alfador purred . . . but he also tapped the side of my face with his paw, claws unsheathed just enough for me to feel them. 

I ignored the way that the other two conscious humans in the room were staring at me, and reached for the steel crescent at my hip. A twist of my fingers and a murmured word popped my sister's amulet from its setting. I raised it and pressed the Dreamstone chip against Alfador's forehead, energizing it with a whisper of power. 

"I know you're listening," I said out loud. "I need to know: Is he really trying to convince me to let him do this? Or are his reactions all just coincidence? What is he really thinking?" 

For a moment, nothing happened. Then something stirred in my mind, and I closed my eyes to improve my concentration. 

It was like a memory, a blurry capture of a single instant of another being's thoughts, and there was a great deal there that surprised me. The Royal Silvers were far more intelligent than I think anyone had ever suspected. Alfador understood High Zeala almost as well as a young child might have: well enough to grasp at least the gist of conversations conducted around him in that language. He knew that Gil wasn't going to wake up on his own. And hidden behind that, somehow, was a blurry awareness of his own mortality. At seven years of age, Alfador knew he was quite possibly past the midpoint of his life. 

And he didn't want to leave me. 

The depth of his feelings shocked me. To Alfador I was . . . more than a friend or partner or even brother. As a tiny kitten, he had chosen me. I was his. He was mine. Bound in a relationship for which humans have no words. And he knew that, if he became part of Gil, he would be able to stay with me that much longer. 

"You truly do want this," I said, opening my eyes and feeling a rough tongue lap, just once, against my chin. 

"That's a Dreamstone!" Renna exclaimed as I lifted the amulet from Alfador's forehead. "Where did you get it?" 

"Renna, that's really none of our business," Ascelus said. 

I just silently put the amulet back where it belonged. Empty, my hand drifted up to run the length of Alfador's spine, and to rub one last time behind his jaw and around his ears. Then I set him gently down on the bed and nodded to the two medics. 

"You're certain that this is what you want?" Ascelus asked. 

" _Mra!_ " 

"Far be it from me to tell a cat that he can't make his own decisions," I said with a tired smile. "How long will this take?" 

"Normally, we would need a third mage to monitor the procedure, as a safety precaution," Ascelus said. He tilted his head and gave me a thoughtful look. "You can't have reached that level of power without doing a lot of casting. How are you at non-elemental perception spells?" 

"Adequate. What specific spell would you normally use?" Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed Renna tensing as I spoke. 

That led to our host producing a massive grimoire from a shelf out in the hall. I'd actually encountered his spell of choice before, in a somewhat degraded version recopied by some Mystic, and I took a few moments to fix the necessary corrections in my mind before quirking an ironic brow at the two healers and casting it. Renna relaxed slightly when I was done, and I examined the effects of the spell thoughtfully—truth be told, it seemed to be adding very little to my perceptions, but that might have been because I'd trained myself to such a high pitch during my life in the sixth century that I needed no help to sense the fine-grained magic currents that the spell was supposed to apply to. 

I closed the book and laid it aside regretfully—perhaps I'd have an opportunity to examine its contents in more detail later, although I wasn't betting on it—and prompted Ascelus and Renna with a tilt of my head. 

"Well," said the short healer, "now that we have a donor and a monitor, I'll fetch the other things we need, and we can get started." 

Gil was stripped carefully of the quilt and the loose cotton smock he'd been wearing underneath it, and then laid back on the bed face down so that the healers could paint a line of runes along his spine with some sort of red herbal paste. A collar bearing a slightly different set of runes was placed around Alfador's neck, and he scratched at it in such an ordinary catlike way that I almost doubted what the Dreamstone had permitted me to sense of his mind . . . but then Ascelus told him where he needed to be in order for them to cast the spell, and he walked over and curled up in exactly the right place, in the hollow at the small of Gil's back. 

I couldn't say what the casting of the spell itself looked like, since I spent most of it with my eyes closed to make it easier to concentrate on the actual magic as it flowed. I did see a bright flash through my eyelids at one point, but that's all. 

When it was over, and I opened my eyes at last, Alfador was nowhere to be seen, and Gil was still there, but . . . changed. The bone structure of his face was subtly different, but his hair, now lavender-silver rather than brown, was the most noticeable thing, and also— 

"We weren't able to stop his eyebrows from trying to be catlike," Renna said, sounding almost defensive. "No one should notice that he doesn't have any unless they're looking." 

"The important thing is that the tear is sealed," Ascelus added hurriedly. "See? His aura is coming back. He should wake within the hour." 

"At which time we will be leaving," I said. Then I forced myself to add, "Thank you for your help. I suppose we should settle the question of payment now." 

Ascelus stiffened. "I don't save the lives of children for _money_ ," he snapped. "My government stipend is quite enough for me. I certainly need nothing from a man so impoverished that he dresses like an Earthbound!" 

My grip on my temper slipped slightly, and I gave him my coldest sneer. "I forget, sometimes, how bigoted Zeal is, valuing the work of the mind over that of the hands. Well, I can't force payment on you if you are determined not to take it." I sat back down in the chair, stretched out my legs again, and began to page through Ascelus' grimoire, using the weight of the book to distract me from the fact that there was no cat in my lap, and pretending that I was alone in the room. 

The two healers exchanged glances and shrugs. After a while, Renna left. Ascelus watched me as I flipped through the spellbook, pausing here and there to read in more detail spells that I had never encountered before, or had seen only in corrupted versions. 

"I didn't mean to offend you," the little healer said at last. 

I waved his words away with a casual flick of my wrist. Truth be told, I was beginning to see the humour in my outburst: when had I become a defender of the pride of the Earthbound? 

". . . I tend to expect too much of this land," I said, after a long pause. "Even though I should know better than any where its hidden darkness lies. Perhaps I need to be reminded, from time to time, that Zeal is not paradise." 

Just as a solid fortress cannot be constructed on a shifting foundation, a nation built on Lavos' bounty cannot completely conceal the rot at its core. 

"Mfrr . . . Master Janus?" Gil's eyes slid open slowly. They'd gone from being dark and ordinary to a brilliant shade of green more appropriate in a cat than a human. "Where—what— the soldiers!" 

I had my hand on his shoulder immediately, pushing him back against the mattress before he could sit up. "Calm down—it's all long over. You've been asleep for more than a week." 

"A _week!_ Ugh . . . I knew casting that fire spell wasn't a good idea, but I didn't know what else to do. Is Kid okay?" 

I nodded. "They were never after her. You, on the other hand, nearly killed yourself." 

The boy flushed. "I'm sorry! Did you actually look after me? Um . . . This is . . ." He propped himself on his elbows to look around the room, fingered the coverlet of the bed on which he lay, and blinked at Ascelus. "Is this . . . Zeal? You brought me all the way here? Through time, even?" 

"You needed more help than anyone in your own era could give you," I explained tersely. 

"Oh. Is it safe for me to get up?" 

"It should be. Your physical injuries are long since healed." 

Gil made it to a sitting position on the edge of the bed, then began to topple slowly forward. I was instantly out of my chair, grabbing him by the shoulders and pushing him back. 

"Sorry! I don't know what I was trying to do there— I'm kind of dizzy, and sitting like this just doesn't feel right, somehow . . ." The boy shook his head. "I . . . um . . . could you hold me for a moment?" Then he looked at me again, and winced. "I guess not. Sorry—it was a stupid thing to ask. I don't know why I feel . . ." Another helpless head-shake. 

I reached over and ran one gloved hand through his hair—I wouldn't have done it if he had been just Gil, but the part of him that was Alfador had to be feeling lonely and confused. The boy made a soft sound in his throat and leaned into my touch. 

"Get dressed," I told him, pointing out the small bundle that had been wrapped in the quilt along with him. "I'll be waiting for you outside." And I squeezed his shoulder gently before turning toward the door. 

Ascelus followed me out into the hallway. "Do you mind if I ask you a question?" 

I shrugged. The little healer seemed to take this as encouragement, because he said, "That language you and the boy were speaking . . . I didn't think the Earthbound dialect had diverged so far from ours that it would be unintelligible. Just where is he really from?" 

My only reply was another shrug. I hadn't even realized until he'd mentioned it that Gil had addressed me in the language of his own time, and I'd replied in kind. 

Ascelus rolled his eyes. "Very well, keep your mysteries—you certainly have enough of them! You do realize that I'm going to be wondering about you for the rest of my life." 

"Better that you wonder than that you ever learn the truth," I replied. "Better for you . . . and for the world." 

"That is . . . an interesting assertion." 

"Master Janus?" Gil had opened the door to the bedroom a little way and was poking his head around the edge of the frame. 

"I assume it's safe for him to leave," I said to Ascelus. It wasn't a question. 

The short man frowned. "I'd prefer to keep him here for a few days, actually, but I somehow doubt you'd allow it. Have that water-element of yours check him over periodically for the next month or so to make certain that there aren't any unusual side effects." 

I nodded, and gestured for the boy to follow me. He didn't say anything more until we were outside on the front porch, where I paused to arrange my hood. 

"This place . . . It isn't what I would have expected, somehow. It's too . . . normal." 

"I suspect that suburbs may be similar regardless of where in history you find them," I said dryly. "You may find the city center a bit more impressive, although Kajar in this time hasn't yet become what it will be in my day." 

"So when are we?" 

I began to walk—I would have floated instead, but the boy didn't need to strain himself right now by trotting after me. "Zealish Regnal Year 17-Sarenos. Roughly a century and a half before the Fall." Ascelus had had a calendar in his hallway which had given me the exact year. 

"Are we going to be staying here for long?" 

"No. I have an errand to run inside the city. After that, we'll be leaving." 

"Then I'm not going to get to see the Palace." 

"Only from a distance." I stopped and turned. Pointed at the towers, barely visible over the edge of the rocky upthrust on which the Palace stood. "Over there." 

Gil tilted his head up to get a better view of what my finger was indicating. "Oh! That's . . . I wish we could go there. It feels like that's where we should be." 

Was that some vestige of Alfador speaking? "We can't take the risk." 

"I know—I remember you talking to Melchior about how you didn't want to change the past . . ." An odd expression crossed the boy's face. "But _how_ do I remember that? I mean, I was out cold—I _know_ I was!—but—" 

I reached out and squeezed his shoulder, feeling him stretch upward slightly, pressing into the contact without realizing it. "I'll explain later. For now, we need to finish up here so that we can return to your time." 

". . . I guess it is _my_ time and not really yours, isn't it? Your time would have to be . . ." Gil frowned. He was right: in the end, I was a sort of temporal orphan. If I hadn't gone leaping about in time, I would now be living in the twenty-third year after the Fall of Zeal, but I didn't consider the post-Fall world my home any more than I'd felt that the sixth century was. 

"You can think about that when we're back in Guardia," I said, and began walking again. 

I was right about the center of Kajar impressing Gil. He stared round-eyed at everything from magically animated advertising billboards to the omnipresent Nu. Often, I had to grasp him by the arm or shoulder to steer him around obstacles. 

At a shop in the base of one tall building, I bought a set of the delicate magic-infused glassware used for distilling high-potency ether, and then emptied my purse to obtain a half- dozen elixirs as well—not nearly enough to fill my cape's hidden pockets, but better than nothing. The glassware went into the pocket dimension holding my scythe, which I hoped I wouldn't need between there and the Ashtears'. 

When I'd finished paying the Nu shopkeeper, Gil was nowhere to be seen. I muttered a curse and started looking around. 

In the end, it was his aura that led me to him, outside, where he was standing quietly in a shadowed alcove and gazing at the tops of the white towers. 

"Gil," I said sharply, and the sound of my voice made him start guiltily. 

"I'm sorry I wandered off, but . . . it's so beautiful here, and I'm never going to have another chance to see it, am I? Even if it feels like this should be . . . home." 

Something twisted inside me and left me feeling a dull pain like that of a half-healed wound. "Don't forget what this place was built on," I snapped. "Its beauty is entirely superficial." 

Gil put his hand on my forearm, just above the cuff of my glove. I was so astounded by his temerity that I froze for an instant . . . and then was surprised to realize that his touch felt very much like Alfador's. 

"I didn't mean to hurt you," the boy said quietly. "Or to remind you of . . . that. I guess I should have known better—I only went back to Porre once after my family kicked me out, but when I did, it was like I was bleeding inside. Zeal must do the same thing to you . . . especially since you didn't have a choice about leaving." 

"I didn't ask for your sympathy," I snapped. 

"No, you didn't," came the serious reply, "but I think that maybe you need it." 

"You are beginning to tempt me to leave you here." 

" _Don't!_ " The boy suddenly lost his composure, and grabbed my arm with both hands. "Please don't leave me alone again! I'm sorry!" He stepped in closer to me and rubbed himself against my side and leg . . . then flinched away as though I'd burned him. I didn't blame him. While the gesture had been utterly asexual, it had also felt simultaneously right and wrong in a way that I found myself unable to articulate. And that terror at the thought of abandonment . . . somehow, that had felt like both the loyal cat and the boy who had just found a new home for himself speaking in unison. 

"I didn't mean that I was actually going to do it," I grumbled, tousling his hair. "Reassuring" wasn't a role that sat easily on my shoulders—my own problems had hardened me too much for me to be able to be very sympathetic most of the time— but in this case, I knew I had to try. "If I were going to abandon you, do you think I would have gone to all this trouble to save your life?" 

" . . . I guess not. Being nice for no reason . . . isn't like you. But I don't want you to go away again." Then he blinked. " _Again?_ Ugh, I think I'm going crazy. Why do I remember . . . this kid in long robes . . . and you . . . ?" 

Suddenly, I couldn't bring myself to look at him. "Those are Alfador's memories." 

" _Alfador's_ . . . ? Why would I be remembering—Oh, no. No. Please tell me that didn't happen, that I—that _Alfador_ —didn't—" 

I forced myself to turn back to the boy, and saw that his face had gone white. 

"Stop that," I said brusquely. "Alfador did what he chose for his own reasons, and it's impossible to argue with a cat." 

"Still, I would rather have died than take away your only friend." There were tears glimmering at the corners of Gil's eyes now. "He wanted so badly for you to stop hurting . . . and I . . ." 

"Idiot," I said, and pulled the sniffling boy in toward me. His hair, where my bare arm brushed against it, had the soft texture of a cat's fur. "He and I would have parted ways sooner or later no matter what happened. I told you that I don't regret saving your life." 

People were staring at us as they walked past the shadowy alcove, I noted. Well, it would be unusual for them to see a man holding a boy of Gil's age in a public place: natives of Zeal just didn't touch each other very often. I glared at a few of them more persistent ones, who seemed to quickly remember urgent business elsewhere. 

"Think you can hold yourself together now?" I asked after the sniffles had died down. "If so, we need to get back. I have work to do back in Guardia." 

Gil nodded and stepped away from me. I began to walk—flying was still out of the question if I wanted the boy to keep up, and I wasn't about to draw the magic circle necessary for the time travel spell right in the middle of town, where someone might spot it and decide to analyze it. 

At the edge of Kajar, I turned back for one last look at the towers, ignoring the sharp pang that I felt as I did so. 

Zeal was no longer my home, regardless of the secret wishes of my heart. 

* * *

By the time six months had passed, Guardia was, in many ways, not the same nation. 

Oh, there still weren't all that many human mages— less than three hundred, all told. I'd only been able to find four Mystics able to perform the adult catalysis spell, and they all took a day or two to recover afterwards. Melchior and I had been working on a way to disentangle the spell's two halves, but we'd been unsuccessful so far. No, the difference lay in the way magic and the Mystics were treated. 

When the Porreans attacked the refortified north end of the Zenan Bridge two months after the sack of Truce, I orchestrated the battle carefully—in person—so that the Mystics could show off their newly-learned attack spells _without_ displaying the terrifying level of power I had used to raise the zombie army. The victory celebration afterwards involved a lot of food, alcohol, and backslapping, as such things often do, and it welded the army's disparate forces together to such an extent that most of the water-using Mystics spent the next morning being asked to tend to the uncatalyzed humans' hangovers. Magic became seen as something useful and even, to some extent, desirable, and those able to perform the catalysis spell suddenly had more military volunteers than they could handle. 

The Mystics' habit of addressing me by my old name of _Magus_ spread to the human troops as well, so thoroughly that by the time the harvest was over for the year, only my "family"—Lucca, Lara, Gil, and Melchior—were still calling me "Janus". I decided fairly early on that I didn't mind. If Schala truly was out there somewhere in the world during this time period, better that she not know I'd become a war leader again. 

Schala . . . 

I'd passed her description quietly through the army, of course, but no one ever reported having seen her, and I'd come to the conclusion that she wasn't anywhere in Guardia. Nor had she been in Medina. Which left isolated Choras, or Porre and its allies, as the only possibilities if she was in this time period at all. 

Unless she was deliberately hiding from whatever she'd feared would attack Kid, of course. I was trying very hard not to think about that possibility—about her in danger again— when I had my hands full looking after Guardia. 

Another thing that disturbed me was the lack of any news of the Masamune. We knew that it had been at Guardia Castle during Dalton's attack, and that the man who had made off with it was a Porrean junior officer who had been sent back south as a messenger before the zombies had chased their main force back across the Zenan Bridge, but what intelligence we'd been able to get out of Porre indicated that the young man in question had disappeared without a trace a few months later, _possibly_ somewhere in the Denadoro Mountains, which was ironic if true. However, the mountains remained Porrean territory, making it impossible for me to send out a force to search them. 

I was . . . not exactly a beloved ruler to the Guardians. No, let me be honest here if nowhere else: I wasn't well-liked, and I lumbered the nobles with the day-to-day business of the nation while I ran the war and occasionally dealt with other crises that cropped up. It was much the same as the way I'd handled the sixth-century Mystics, but their preceding ruler had been an incompetent fool. By contrast, the late King Guardia had been a skilled politician and well-loved by his people—it was hardly surprising that I would suffer by comparison. I was feared, not loved, by almost everyone save the Mystics. And I still fiercely resented the demands that ruling made on my time. 

In the second year of the war, Porre began to call in auxiliary forces from its territories outside of Zenan. When I received that news, I wasn't sure whether to be glad or sorry. Were they running out of soldiers, or freeing them up? Intelligence reports suggested the latter, and I became even more uneasy after those extra men vanished without a trace. Clearly, they were being sent somewhere . . . but they had other potential targets besides Guardia. Choras, for one, and there were still a handful of small, semi-independent city-states scattered across the globe . . . 

It was on a miserable, rainy day in late summer, when any non-mage with sense would have been hiding inside, that I found out exactly what had happened to those soldiers. I was curled up under a tree in the Ashtears' back yard, making another unsuccessful attempt to deconstruct the adult catalysis spell, with Gil half-lying in my lap as he read a grimoire, when Lucca emerged from the house and made a beeline towards me, the omnipresent sound of the Black Wind rising from the familiar hum that signified war and death to a rushing that implied that something much worse was about to happen. 

"You know," she said when she stopped beside me, "anyone who didn't know Gil's story would really wonder about the two of you if they saw this." 

"I don't do this in _public_ ," Gil pointed out, sitting up. "Although I think sometimes that I should, the way that stupid rumour about my being the regent's catamite keeps coming up." He made a disgusted, feline noise in his throat. 

"That isn't your fault," I said. "Given my reputation, the number of enemies I've acquired here, and the fact that I keep you with me far more than would be normal for an apprentice, it's a wonder that the damned thing only turns up sporadically." And those who caught me in unguarded moments might even have noticed that Gil was the only person that I touched, or whom I permitted to touch me. Small wonder that there were rumours, especially now that my apprentice was becoming such an elegant young man. He'd grown his lavender-silver hair out and become somewhat obsessed with his wardrobe, and received downright covetous stares from women twice his age. 

It likely also didn't help that by that time, I'd turned down offers of marriage from several young noblewomen who had been thrown at me by fathers or elder brothers who were hoping for an alliance, and wouldn't understand or accept that I wanted nothing to tie me to Guardia. Marriage, or even just taking a lover, was out of the question for me while Schala was still missing. I'd already diluted my focus enough, and wasn't going to add to the problem in any way I could avoid. 

"What did you need to talk to me about?" I asked Lucca—she wouldn't have come out here for no reason, not when she lacked the ability to cast a waterproof spell like the one currently enclosing Gil and I in a comfortable bubble of dry air. 

She licked her lips, and my eyebrows rose, because it wasn't like her to be so nervous. "A Porrean ship flying white and yellow flags dropped anchor in the harbour a couple of hours ago." 

A white flag indicated peaceful intentions, but the yellow . . . "A plague ship? Are they trying to attack us with disease now?" And dishonouring that white flag by so doing . . . 

"No, they're looking for help. The harbourmaster communicated with them a bit by semaphore. Apparently their problem isn't really a disease—it has something to do with magic." 

I frowned. If they'd come here, to Guardia, whatever- it-was had to have everyone on that ship well and properly terrified. Enough so that they'd risk my tender mercies in order to get access to what magical expertise remained in the world. 

I stood, pocketing the little black book that I'd been scribbling in. "I'll be at the harbour," I said, and immediately voiced my favourite teleportation spell. 

The docks were . . . unusually still. Guardia still traded irregularly with Choras and a few smugglers from the Porrean fringe-states, and there were a half-dozen ships of varying sizes roped securely to the big piers, but no one was loading or unloading, although a mere rainstorm wouldn't normally have stopped the longshoremen. The only people I could see anywhere nearby were two men standing at the end of the longest dock, staring out over the water at the shadow of a ship that rode at anchor there. 

I flew over and landed beside them, noting that one man was the harbourmaster and the other carried the flags of a signalman, now sadly wilted by the rain. 

"Lord Magus!" Both men bowed to me, but I waved them back to a more vertical position. 

"I take it that that's our Porrean plague ship," I said, gesturing in the direction of the vessel that was bobbing on the waves near the breakwater. Now that I was a bit closer, it had become more than just a shadow, but I would have had to squint into the rain to make out much in the way of detail. 

"Yes, my lord." 

"You're in communication with them?" 

The harbourmaster grimaced. "We were before the rain got so heavy, yes. Can't see their flags now, and I doubt they can see ours." 

"That's unfortunate, because I have some questions for them. Wait a moment." 

The standard waterproof spell tended to become unstable when extended to more than ten feet or so, but there were alternatives. I recast a bit of phrasing in my head before extending my arm to point at the distant ship. In response to my words and gestures, a twist in space formed, directing the rain to either side of a tunnel in the air, which expanded in response to the movement of my hands. When I'd finished, we had a rain- free corridor beginning some ten feet before the end of the dock and encompassing a good chunk of the Porrean ship and the space in-between. 

"That should last a few hours," I said. "Did they give you any details at all about what was going on?" 

"Not much, my lord . . . but we can ask now." The harbourmaster gestured, and the signalman unfurled his flags. 

The story that emerged through the slow medium of semaphore was . . . disturbing, to say the least. The Porreans had been part of a group excavating a ruin of unknown origin. They'd broken through into an underground chamber containing magical artefacts, and looted it. A few days later, one of the men who'd been involved in that looting had come down with what had initially appeared to be a fever . . . but within hours, he'd been transformed into what the Porreans could only describe as "an animal". Several others had been injured in subduing him, and a few days later some of them had begun to develop the same symptoms. It was at that point that this ship had fled, only to discover that they had an infected man aboard. Seven sailors were now chained in various locations around the ship, awaiting their own transformations. 

A ruin of unknown origin . . . 

"Ask them if this 'ruin' was a stone platform in the woods north of Medina," I said. 

The signalman whirled his flags, then squinted. "They say, 'yes'." 

I swore at length in High Zeala while the harbourmaster and the signalman stared. "Ask them how many healthy men are aboard," I ordered. 

"Twenty-eight," came the response after the requisite flag-whirling. 

Which was too many for us to bring them all to land and house them in individual cells, with Castle Guardia and its dungeons gone. 

"No one is to make physical contact with anyone aboard that ship. Anyone disembarking is to be shot without warning—tell them that part—and the corpse secured to prevent it from drifting . . . but don't touch even the dead. If they need supplies, they can draw them up with a rope, but no one is to get any closer than that. Do nothing else until I return." I glared at the harbourmaster to reinforce my words. He swallowed and nodded, and I teleported away to look for Melchior. 

You see, I knew enough about what had been in the vaults under Zeal's North Palace to be very worried indeed, but I'd also been too young to be trusted with the specifics at the time of the Fall, and too busy with other things as the Prophet to investigate the matter. Melchior, with his respected position at court, would know more . . . or so I hoped. 

After an hour or so of searching, I found him in Lucca's workshop, where the two of them were collaborating on some new weapon or other. When I told Melchior what had happened, he went white. 

"I hope that the Porreans haven't stumbled upon what I think they might have . . . or at least that, if they have, it isn't permitted to spread back to Porre proper. If it does, we may have to slaughter everyone in South Zenan to contain it." 

" _Tell me,_ " I ordered sharply. 

And he did. 

It had been something left over from those long-ago days before Zeal rose into the sky and there had still been wars between the Enlightened and the Earthbound as they struggled to control the meager resources of their frozen world. Once it had been an ordinary disease, but some skilled water-user had twisted it until it affected only the Earthbound and turned them into . . . creatures . . . who fought amongst themselves. It had wiped what would eventually become the main island of Zeal clean of the magicless, and its creators had been well-satisfied. 

Generations later, after the founding of the Kingdom of Zeal, their descendants had, in remorse and disgust, destroyed most samples of the disease and the information on how it had been produced, but one final sample had been sealed in the North Palace, and there it had remained until the Fall . . . and after, apparently. 

"Once the symptoms start to show, there is no cure," Melchior finished. "The surviving information recorded the incubation period as four to ten days, and the transmission method as fluid exchange, usually in the form of biting. And it doesn't affect mages, not even latents. That's all I know." 

I scowled. Porre was further from Medina than Guardia was, so hopefully no ships had reached it . . . yet. Still, this was going to be ugly. The infected individuals had to be killed, and their bodies burned, before this could spread any further. 

"Sis! Sis!" 

We all turned sharply toward the doorway, where Kid, now almost three years old, was brandishing something in one chubby hand. 

"Pretty!" the little girl said, holding it up for us to admire. 

"Kid, where did you get that?" Lucca asked cautiously. 

"From under my bed, I suspect," I said before the child could answer. I'd redistributed most of Dalton's collection of talismans to the Mystics who were working with the army, but I'd decided that the golem summoner was too fickle to use in military operations, stashed it where it would be out of my way, and then forgotten about it. Apparently Kid had been attracted to the embroidered cloth pouch that protected the amulet proper. "Let her keep it. To anyone who doesn't know the invocation, it's no more harmful than any other piece of wood." 

"Well . . . okay. If you're sure." 

Kid wouldn't come any further into the room with me there—two-and-a-half years of my presence hadn't made her any more comfortable with my aura—so Lucca went out into the hall to assure her that, yes, it was a really _nice_ pretty and all hers, while Melchior and I exchanged grim glances. 

The interruption hadn't made either of us forget about the Porreans. 

"Is there a way to recognize someone infected who isn't yet showing symptoms?" I asked the Guru. 

"Only with a diagnostic probe." 

"I take it that you're aware of what that means." 

Melchior nodded. "Separating out the healthy ones and getting them off that ship is going to be my job . . . although I expect that dealing with the infected ones will have to be yours." 

I inclined my head, reflecting that this would all have been far easier back in the sixth century, when I would have been able to casually slaughter an entire shipfull of humans and no one around me would have cared . . . but of course, it wouldn't stop at one shipfull. 

Back down by the harbour, I warned the harbourmaster, and then wasted quite a bit of power on the creation of a spectacular ice bridge between the dock and the Porrean ship—I could have flown across the gap, but Melchior lacked that ability, and anyway, it was an opportunity to impress on the Porreans exactly what they were dealing with here. 

The Porrean captain greeted us in a strained tone of voice. He had to have been under quite a bit of stress, because when I explained what we were going to have to do, he actually looked relieved. 

He delegated his first mate to show me the men who were either in the midst of becoming . . . creatures . . . or who were considered to be at risk. I insisted on seeing the worst of them first, and was led to the rope locker. 

The . . . thing . . . inside might have been human once, I suppose, but it now looked less so than most Mystics. Instead, what confronted me, lunging against its chains, appeared to be a cross between a mastiff and a baboon: furred, quadrupedal, and with thick, ugly jaws that could rend bone and that meant biting would be its primary method of attack. There was just enough intelligence left in the dark eyes to be profoundly disturbing. 

I didn't need the Black Wind's rising howl to tell me that there was surely no salvaging this, and I gestured for the first mate to stand back before I began to cast. First, an inverted shielding spell that would keep my primary casting from affecting anything but the creature and a small volume of air surrounding it, then the drawn-out, rock-melting fire spell I'd used to seal the vaults under my old castle. Within the inferno, the creature screamed and died, but I kept the spell going until I was certain it would be reduced to ash, then added an ice spell to cool the remains and canceled the shield, certain that there was no way any disease could survive in the handful of fine grey powder that drifted to the floor. 

"Take me to the next one," I ordered, and the sailor who'd led me here obeyed, white-faced. 

* * *

In the end, of the eight "at-risk" men aboard the Porrean vessel, we managed to salvage three: a latent wind- element and two Earthbound who were miraculously uninfected. Melchior found and cured one man who had been infected without anyone noticing and wasn't yet showing symptoms, and we sent the ship on its way, in the wake of many promises to pass on the news of our generosity to whatever other Porrean vessels they came across, and report the nature of the illness to their High Command. However, I wasn't willing to risk the spread of the disease to Zenan, and so gathered together the Mystics and the increasing number of human army mages and arranged a . . . safety net. 

We set up a trap of sorts in what was known as the Fang Straits—the narrow band of shallow water that lay between the easternmost point in Zenan and the western outjut of Medina's continent—after a flyover that I made showed that most of the likely Porrean naval escapees from the North Palace were still in the process of swinging wide around the Black God's Teeth to head south. The two or three ships that had already made it through the Straits, I personally ambushed in the middle of the night and burned to the waterline to ensure that there would be no survivors . . . and no evidence, because many of the Porreans whose ships we purged of the magically engineered disease promised to put in a good word for us with their High Command. 

It was, perhaps, the first step toward peace . . . and indeed, negotiations began only a few weeks later. However, I ordered them stalled while I dealt with one final detail. 

The North Palace excavation was a raw trench in the earth beside the old stone platform, and when I hopped down inside, I discovered that the Porreans had breached the stone wall of the first level below ground, where, according to Melchior, the least dangerous of the magical artefacts the Palace had been built to house were kept. 

A word lit the thirteen-thousand-year-old etheric lamps inside, and I was surprised to see that the Porreans hadn't made all that much of a mess. They'd levered off some covers and opened some casings, but for the most part, the artefacts themselves appeared to have remained where they'd been left at the time of the Fall. Oh, some individual items were broken, but I attributed that to the trauma of the Fall itself, rather than anything the excavation team had done. 

Most of the things was housed here were elemental holding crystals and the like, items confiscated when Zeal had abandoned the Sun Stone as a power source and gone over to the Mammon Machine and Lavos. Still, even they could be a problem in the wrong hands, and I pocketed them without remorse. And I subjected the broken glass vial with spots of dried blood on it to a furious fire spell until it melted into a shapeless lump, just to make certain that any remnants of the magic-modified disease were well and truly dead. 

Then I went to the carven slab of rock that blocked the path down into the lower levels. The Porreans clearly hadn't figured out what it was—yet—and I wasn't about to give them the opportunity to do so. 

I used the opening spell that I'd made Melchior teach me, lit more etheric lamps, and proceeded down the stone steps. 

It took me five trips to transfer all the movable artefacts in the North Palace vaults to the old armory under the ruins of my castle. Some items would eventually be distributed to the mages of Guardia, but I intended to keep the nastier ones out of circulation unless some truly dire necessity arose . . . especially since many of them were just as dangerous to the user as to the target. Fortunately, the custodians of the North Palace had been just as rigid as those who tended the library of Kajar, and everything was clearly labeled in High Zeala, which provided me with a method of triage. 

The bottommost level of the Palace contained large mechanisms rather than small portable items, and these I had to destroy—cautiously, and by the crude physical means of first pulling out what I hoped were vital components, and then battering the rest into shapelessness with a good-sized rock. It was more manual labour than I had attempted in quite some time, and more than once I found myself slumping against a wall with the rock at my feet, trying to get up the energy to lift it again . . . but I dared not destroy anything here by magic unless I understood exactly what my target was and how it worked. There was too much risk of setting off a chain reaction and doing something unpleasant to myself. 

No doubt it would have been easier to deal with those oversized magical machines if I had brought along a dozen or so brawny Guardian army troopers, but I preferred that no one who didn't know of it already ever find out that this part of the complex existed. Even with everything stripped and smashed to bits, a genius like Lucca might have been able to reconstruct something dangerous from the damaged components. And I wasn't about to let that happen unless I had some control over the results. 

Once I was done with the rock, I resealed the now- empty lower levels of the Palace, returned to the Ashtears', and slept the clock 'round. Only then did I order that the negotiations with Porre continue. 

* * *

"I would say that you aren't what I expected, but although it would be true, I also suspect that you hear it quite often." 

I inclined my head to the High Marshal of Porre, who sat straight-backed in the chair across from me. Given the stiffness of Porrean dress uniforms, it's quite possible that there was no other way that he _could_ sit . . . or perhaps his military posture was so deeply ingrained that he even _slept_ at attention. Although he still had a full head of fair hair, I judged his age to be around fifty-five. 

By contrast, I'd made no attempt whatsoever to impress anyone. I'd retained my normal clothing, including my armour, and although I didn't exactly _slouch_ in my chair, I wasn't trying to keep my back anything more than normally straight. It was a deliberate show of confidence, and I thought it was working. 

Above us, the canvas of the tent under which these talks were taking place cracked like a whip under the influence of the strong sea wind. I hadn't expected to be holding the final negotiations for the peace treaty between Porre and Guardia in the middle of the Zenan Bridge, but the Porreans had suggested it, and I hadn't been able to come up with any reason not to go along. And so, the two armies had collaborated in pitching a long, narrow tent with entrances at either end, and we'd crammed everyone of possible relevance inside, even though some of them were so far from the center that I doubted they were able to hear a word either of us was saying. I wasn't sure who would have the advantage if fighting broke out across the table between us, which blocked the bridge quite efficiently, but hoped that it wouldn't be necessary to find out. 

"You've had time to study the terms, I presume," I said, flipping my hand in the direction of the pile of papers lying in the center of the table. 

"Indeed, and in many ways Guardia has been more than generous." Which no doubt could be translated to, _Thank you for offering to clean up the mess we left behind in Medina_. But such things couldn't be said outright under these circumstances, lest the speaker lose face. "However, there is one other matter that I would like to broach." 

"Go on," I said. 

The High Marshal cleared his throat. "I believe that you have yet to negotiate a marriage alliance for Princess Leene." 

_Interesting._ "There aren't a tremendous number of options available in that area at the moment, and attempting to act on any of them struck me as . . . premature," I replied, leaving a great deal unsaid. Explaining that I didn't think it was worth trying to form an alliance that couldn't come to fruition for more than a decade with any nation that wasn't a stable monarchy—which meant that someone completely different could be in charge there when Leene reached marriageable age, making the alliance worthless—would be an implied insult to the High Marshal's intelligence. And saying that I thought Crono and Marle would have wanted their daughter to marry for love, as they had, would have been . . . even more undiplomatic. 

Leene was a princess, and even in Zeal, which had no other nations to form alliances with, the marriage of a member of the royal family was a political matter. My parents, although they had come to love each other deeply (or so Schala had told me—I didn't really remember) had originally married to tie my mother's family more closely to the throne. The only reason Marle had been able to choose her husband was that, after interfering in her father's trial, she'd had him wrapped around her little finger. 

"My grandson Kaylan is six years old, intelligent and in good health," the High Marshal was saying. "It strikes me that he and Princess Leene might be quite happy together." 

I inclined my head: interest, but not acceptance. Not yet. 

We hammered out terms across that narrow table while the sea winds played with the tent. Substitution of another individual for either of the two parties specified in the treaty had to be approved by both sides. Either side could annul if the spouse presented to them turned out not to be in good health. Alliance contingent on both sides still holding power in fourteen years' time, when Leene would be eligible to marry—the High Marshal gave me a rueful smile when I forced that clause on him. Kaylan to be prince-consort of Guardia, not king. Marriage could be legally annulled after the birth of a male heir. 

It took three closely-written pages to lay everything out. Not willing to trust the matter to a Porrean clerk, I took it all down myself, then cast a duplication spell to obtain a second copy, which I handed over to the High Marshal amidst murmurs from his side of the table . . . and soft sounds of concealed amusement from mine as the Porrean handled the document in a way that suggested he thought it was likely to bite him. I waited patiently while he read the entire thing. 

" . . . You write a remarkably clear hand, or your magic does," the High Marshal said at length. "I accept this as an addendum to the treaty." 

I pulled the other stack of papers, the one containing the text of the treaty itself, toward me and added a notation to that effect to both copies. 

"Do you have any additional clauses to propose?" the Porrean added. 

"There is one thing regarding which I have become . . . somewhat concerned," I admitted. "Two years ago, a family of imps attempting to flee the destruction of Medina were forced to make landfall near Porre when their boat lost a mast in a storm. They disappeared after that, but the boat resurfaced a few months ago in the hands of a human fisherman. I understand that fried imp is still considered a delicacy in the southern parts of your territory, which leads me to wonder exactly how the original owners of that fishing boat met their end." 

The High Marshal didn't shift in his seat, but judging from the look in his eyes, he would have liked to. 

"Guardia now numbers many Mystics among its citizens," I continued. "I think it is only reasonable that we be assured that, if said citizens have to travel into Porrean territory, they will be accorded the same rights as they would be if they were human." 

"My people are not very familiar with Mystics," the Porrean said with a frown. "How do you propose that they tell the difference between one of your . . . citizens . . . and an exotic animal?" 

I leaned back in my seat. "The Mystics' own definition is somewhat difficult for a non-mage to apply, I admit, but there are certain commonalities between Mystics and humans out of which I think we can build a usable definition. The ability to communicate is both a cornerstone of intelligence and, in most cases, easily testable. I propose that, for legal purposes, a 'person' be defined as anyone who can carry on an intelligent conversation, or who belongs to a species in which the majority of normal adults have that ability, and that all 'persons', including humans, have the same rights." It had taken me a week immersed in the language of Guardia's law-codes to craft that definition, and I still wasn't certain that the headaches had been worth it. Especially since the Porreans might object on the grounds that it encompassed not just humans and Mystics, but the demi-humans of the south and even a few types of monster. 

And indeed, the High Marshal was frowning. "I suppose that isn't too bad in principle, but there is a limit to how much influence I can exert on our people in that regard." 

"I don't expect Porre to suddenly start welcoming Mystics with open arms," I said. "My intention is to set a precedent. Given official approval, the attitudes of your citizens should adjust themselves over time, although it may take several generations." 

I had little choice but to stubbornly insist on the matter: my search for Schala was next going to take me to Porre and its allies, making it a necessary precaution against being attacked because I'd been spotted without an illusion concealing my peculiarities. 

A long hesitation. "Very well. I will accept the clause." 

After it was added, we both pronounced ourselves agreeable, and signed. The Black Wind died down to the background murmur that indicated nothing much wrong with the world as I released the pen after my second signature. I handed our copy of the treaty over to Truce's town clerk, who had by default become custodian of Guardia's national archives as well, said a polite farewell to the Porreans, and teleported away. 

One more thing to do, and then I would be free to leave. Well, two more things, in a sense: besides the more important matter, I had to deal with the strata of my possessions that had somehow accumulated at the Ashtears'. Books, mostly, and experimental oddments, all of which had to be ferried back to the vaults under my old castle, where they would be secure for . . . however long matters took. 

Only when I was finished with that did I return to Zenan Bridge, where the long tent was being slowly struck. 

"It isn't like you to run away." Lucca had to have noted where I had teleported in that morning, because she was sitting on a rock that jutted out of the same hilltop, not five feet away from my point of arrival. 

"Generally, a person who's intent on fleeing a location doesn't return a couple of hours later," I pointed out with a touch of acid. "However, I thought you might need a little time to cool down." 

"Then you knew how I was going to feel! Janus, how could you? Promising that Leene will marry some boy that none of us even know—" 

"I thought it was Marle who was prone to thoughtless emotional outbursts, but I suppose I overestimated you." I was having a hard time keeping my temper under control—I was so _close_ to being free of all this again, but the last step had to happen in its proper time and not before, and it was making me more snappish than usual . . . However, I forced myself to explain, rather than give in to the temptation to hurl insults. "The treaty—marriage clause and all—is meant to do nothing more than buy time for Leene to grow up. By the time it comes into effect, she will be queen in her own right . . . which means that she will be able to decide for herself whether or not to marry this Kaylan. For all we know, by the time it becomes an issue, the boy may be dead, or his family may be out of power. In any case, it's better than letting the war continue." 

Lucca thumped her heels against the rock she was sitting on. "You're always so damned _rational_ about stuff like this . . . Do you have any idea how annoying that is?" 

I smiled thinly. "You're forgetting that, from my point of view, the eventual fate of Guardia matters very little—my goals intersect with yours only superficially at the moment. If I didn't want to ensure Kid's safety, I would have walked away from all this two years ago." 

"And left me and everyone else to die?" 

Ten years ago, I would have said _yes_ without a qualm. 

Ten years ago, I'd been hunting Lavos. 

" . . . I don't know," I admitted. 

"I guess that's an improvement." However, Lucca still looked as though she'd found half a worm in her apple, and I again found myself groping for words to explain further. 

"Caring about others is . . . foreign to me. You know that. I spent so many years putting aside anything not of direct relevance to my goals that—" 

"Janus, that's enough, okay? I understand, even if I kind of wish I didn't. It's just . . . frustrating for me, seeing you going around in circles all the time without making any progress on getting your humanity back." 

"You assume that I want it," I said in a dry tone. 

"No, I assume that you _need_ it. Look, I . . . Right after Mom was crippled, I really threw myself into studying science and engineering. I sank myself so deep into it that for a while I was . . . a bit like you. I probably would have gotten a lot worse if Mom and Dad and Crono hadn't been after me all the time. I can't claim that I really understand, but will you accept that I know at least a little?" 

Suddenly, I felt very tired. "If you choose to believe that you do, I am not interested in arguing with you. In any case, it's almost time for me to perform my last act as Leene's regent. Are you coming?" 

" _Circles_ ," Lucca muttered as though it were a curse. "Yeah, I'm coming." 

The meeting took place in one of the larger rooms of the little fort that guarded the end of the bridge. There, I announced quite publicly that I was resigning as Leene's regent, and the conditions under which I was doing so. I'd chosen as my replacement not one person, but a council of seven: the two among the major nobles whom I considered to be the least afflicted with congenital idiocy, the commanders of the two major branches of the military, the mayor of Truce, Lara, and Slash the Mage. None of them had known the makeup of the council in advance, and I expected objections to my last two choices. To my surprise, there were none. 

Nearly two hundred serving human soldiers and a dozen Mystics, as well as the assorted nobles' retinues and assorted other supernumeraries brought along to help with the treaty negotiations, watched as we all put our signatures to yet another document. The head of the new Regency Council applied the Great Seal of Guardia, salvaged intact from the ruins of the castle, to a blob of wax near the lower edge. Then it was my turn. 

It may have been the only time I ever used my father's signet ring on a document. The impression it left was only half- familiar: not the national symbol that had been so prominently displayed on the floating islands, but the older, more primitive crest that had preceded it, depicting a shooting star with a crown hovering above it. It was, I mused, fitting that I close out this chapter of my life with a reminder of Lavos. 

A hand placed on my bare arm drew me back out of my thoughts and into the present, where the meeting was breaking up. I didn't have to look to see who it was, because only Gil would have dared, and so I wasn't surprised to hear him ask a cheerful question. 

"I'm glad that's over. So when do we leave?" 

" _We_ don't," I snapped. "You're going back to Truce with Lucca and Lara." 

"No, I'm not." Gil stepped around to stand in front of me, defiantly raising his chin so that he could look me in the eye. "And don't threaten to take me back there by force—I'll just leave again, and find you. I won't lose my teacher . . . or my friend." 

"Friend," I said slowly. "Is that what I am to you?" 

The boy shrugged. "I don't think humans have a word for it. Cats might, I guess, if they used words, but . . . anyway, 'friend' is as close as I can come. And . . . I remember her. Schala. Even Alfador could see how important she was to you, and I know she was a good person. I want to help you find her." 

I stared at Gil in consternation. It was so very rare that I ever found anyone who shared one of my goals for its own sake that I barely knew how to react. 

"Are you prepared to spend the next few years travelling? This won't be like before, when I was returning to Truce every night," I warned him. "Depending on what we find, I may even choose to leave this time period permanently." 

"I was travelling on my own for quite a while before I ran into you," the boy pointed out. "Don't worry. I'm already packed. If you decided you want to go to another time . . . well, I can make that decision when we get that far, right?" 

"Do come back when you can, though," added a quite unexpected voice. I should have noticed the rhythmic thump of Lara's crutches approaching me from behind. "Our house will always welcome you. Like it or not, you're both part of our family now." 

I grimaced. "I need to stay away from Guardia completely for at least a year or two while the Council finds its feet. Otherwise, you'll all want to draw me back into politics. After that, I'll consider it." 

"Which reminds me," Lara said seriously. "I understand why you chose most of the Council, but . . . why me?" 

"Because Leene will need someone there whose primary concern is for her as a person," I said, then added irritably, "What are you both staring at? Did you think I had some reason to _want_ the girl to be miserable? Surprising though it may seem after all that I've done, I don't enjoy inflicting pain for its own sake—I only do it when it's expedient. Gil, get that bag of yours. We're leaving." 


	5. V. Sealed Door

For three years, Gil and I scoured the world for Schala . . . and found nothing. 

It was both easier and more difficult than my search in the era of the Fall. We had no need to comb the floors of the oceans here, and there were plenty of people around to ask questions of. But on the other hand, the easiest way to hide a person is to place her amongst other people. 

In the end, the only place left to look was El Nido, and, to my frustration, the islands still wouldn't let me in. Gil could pass through the barrier with impunity, however, indicating that it had been erected against me specifically . . . or perhaps against time travellers, but I wasn't about to haul Melchior down to the distant southwest in order to test that hypothesis. Either way, it was . . . suggestive. 

"I could go alone." 

We were in a hotel room in Choras, spooned together in a bed almost too narrow for the both of us. Any outside observer attempting to interpret this as evidence of sexual intimacy would doubtless have been confused by the fact that we were both almost fully clothed, minus footwear and my cape, but I suppose that hypothetical person would nevertheless have had a difficult time figuring out that he was, in fact, seeing the equivalent of a cat curled up on my pillow. Gil still had Alfador's feline desire to cuddle up with me, and while the word _cuddle_ set my teeth on edge, I found that I was still disposed to allow it, so long as we were in private. 

"Gil . . ." 

"Janus, I am quite serious." Gil had been working on altering his speech patterns over the last couple of years, since he'd developed the opinion that the more educated he sounded, the more people would respect him. I had conceded that it was a workable theory, but I also thought that he was taking it to extremes. "I don't expect to enjoy it, but I think it will do me good to be on my own for a time." 

And he was getting to be of the age where his human half would be yearning for independence. "All right, then. I'll leave you to it, and go to the End of Time—I have some questions for Gaspar." 

When I saw him off at the docks the next morning, I had no idea that it would be ten years before our next meeting . . . although I did hear the Black Wind freshening for the first time in years, and the sound filled me with disquiet. 

The End of Time, when I reached it, was the same as ever: fenced platform, door, table, bucket, and raised lamp with Gaspar asleep leaning up against it. When I'd recovered from the transit, I walked over to the old man and shook him by the shoulder. 

"W-what? Prince Janus! It's been a while . . ." 

"What do you know about El Nido?" I asked without preamble. 

Gaspar blinked. "Oh . . . I see. Very little, but it does seem to be a remarkable place, doesn't it? Give me a moment, and I'll look into it in more detail." 

I folded my arms and waited impatiently as the old man stared at nothing—looking into time, no doubt. 

"Most fascinating," the Guru muttered. "Catapulted back in time . . . but when did it come from?" He turned his head slightly, blinking. "Ah, I see, there it is—" Then he tensed as though he had received a sudden shock. "But _why_?" And his eyes darted back and forth. "Damn you, _show_ me—why, you mangy old rat!" 

I raised my eyebrows—I'd never heard the Guru of Time hurl insults at anyone before. "Were you watching anyone I know?" I asked dryly as the old man's eyes refocussed on the present. 

To my surprise, Gaspar nodded. "It's probably easiest to explain things in order, though, so bear with me." 

"Go on." 

"Well, for starters, it looks like most of El Nido is artificial. An island was built in the area in the year 2295. It housed a research institution which seems to have been investigating the fabric of time itself. Some decades later, an accident hurled the facility and the island it was located on back in time. It landed . . . I'm not certain exactly when, because there are no referents. Sometime after the Fall of Zeal but before the ice had broken up very much on the surface, in any case. The inhabitants of the research facility used their technology to build the rest of the archipelago at that time . . . and that was when things started to get complicated." 

"In what way?" I asked sharply. 

I was rewarded with a cool look. "In no way that makes sense to me. _Somehow_ , a city inhabited by the Reptites, who died out long before they could have built any such thing, was dragged _sideways_ in time and dropped in the same era and general location. The researchers and the Reptites fought, and the latter lost, but it was a near thing . . . and I cannot for the life of me figure out why the Reptites were there in the first place!" 

"Perhaps the Entity that Robo postulated during our fight against Lavos was playing games," I said. "However, none of this explains why I can't enter El Nido." 

Gaspar let out a long breath through his nose. "Well, when I said that I was watching someone we both knew, I was talking about Belthasar. He was involved in the initial construction of the research facility, and he had some sort of secret project going on there . . . but the old coot magically shielded his notes so that I can't read them! All I can tell for certain is that he was probing the Darkness Beyond Time for . . . something. He may also have been the one who set up whatever barrier is preventing you from entering the area—I can't see how anyone else would have the necessary information—but _why_ he did it is a mystery to me." 

"It sounds like I should pay your former colleague a visit," I said. "The year 2295, you said?" 

The old man nodded. "I would suggest arriving early in the spring, before the facility's construction was complete, to avoid the force field." 

"Hmph." I turned my back on him and walked over to the circle I had inscribed in the corner of the platform five years ago . . . if the concept of time passing really had anything to do with this place. 

The late twenty-third century . . . I had a disturbing feeling that I was about to find myself seriously out of my depth. I had, of course, visited the ruined future, briefly, while I'd been keeping company with Crono and the others, and I'd seen just enough to know that an era in which a culture that could produce such a place was flourishing, I'd be as out-of-place as a Reptite at my mother's court. Frowning, I drew an illusion across my features—no sense in borrowing trouble by attracting too much attention at my destination—and began to incant the time travel spell. 

The light rose up around me in the way it always did . . . but then something went wrong. It felt like something was trying to pull me in two different directions at once, and the sensation mounted agonizingly until I could no longer hold the spell-structure in my mind. The loss of it dumped me back into the circle at the End of Time, with Gaspar staring, although I felt just as drained as I would have if the spell had completed itself in the normal manner. 

"What happened?" the old man asked. 

I bared my fangs, although he wouldn't be able to see that through the illusion. "You tell me," I snapped, using the railing to pull myself to my feet before adding, "It felt as though something was trying to tear me in two." 

Gaspar blinked mildly . . . and then staggered back against the lamppost. "Urgh! What _is_ that? It's as though . . ." He blinked again. "I'll be damned." 

My hand found the half-sphere on the table, and the infusion of artificial strength radiating from it gave me back the ability to stand up straight, without holding onto anything. 

"If I kill you for keeping me in suspense, you really _will_ be damned," I snapped. "What do you see?" 

"It's as though time has split in two," the old man said. "Give me a moment to think . . ." 

I waited impatiently, foot tapping, while he frowned and grimaced at nothing. 

"Crazy old coot," Gaspar grumbled at length. "He's really done it this time." His eyes focussed on me. "Do you remember what I told you about the Darkness Beyond Time?" 

"I believe you said that it's 'the place where futures invalidated by time travellers go', or some such nonsense," I said sharply. "What does that have to do with anything?" 

The Guru frowned. "It's Belthasar again. He deliberately invalidated a future and then _stopped_ it from shearing off into the Darkness Beyond Time. That means that from the point at which the decision was made, the universe exists in two parallel copies . . . I think. If I'm understanding all this correctly, that's what _should_ happen, but I don't dare look into anything after the split too closely, because I'm seeing both possibilities at once, all jumbled together. Anything after the year 1010 is inaccessible to me now . . . and to you as well, it seems." 

"You're saying that this . . . split . . . happened during the two or three minutes between the time you finished peering into El Nido's history and the time I completed my spell." 

"Exactly. And in terms of the year 1010, it happened a short time after you left to come here." Gaspar hesitated, then added, "I'm afraid you probably won't be able to return there until the split has . . . resolved itself somehow." 

I swore harshly, then, in the next moment, wondered why I had done so. Yes, I was now cut off from Gil, Kid, and Lucca, but why should that matter so very much? Was I actually afraid that they were going to worry? Well, Lucca still had the communication charm I had given her, and I'd long ago made another for Gil, just in case. The nature of the spell was such that it _should_ carry through time, so we'd be able to write letters back and forth, at least. 

I wouldn't be able to protect Kid, though. Instead, I would have to trust Schala's judgement in putting the girl in Lucca's hands. It was galling. Not that I doubted that Schala had made what she believed to be the best choice in selecting the Guardian scientist as her daughter's protector, but where I wouldn't have hesitated to put Kid's safety first in almost any situation, Lucca could end up having conflicting needs. Schala might not have seen that as a weakness in her plan, but _I_ did. 

" . . . Did you ever manage to trace Kid back to a point before Lucca picked her up?" I asked Gaspar. 

But the old man shook his head. "As I told you the last time you asked, her trail dead-ends in the Darkness Beyond Time, where I lost Princess Schala. But check for yourself if you like. Here's how the spell works—" 

It was lightning-elemental, but simple enough. A few muttered words and a visualized diagram, and I was seeing what the old man saw. 

There was Lucca, and her robot, and the baby in her basket. I tried to follow the baby's thread backward, and lost it in darkness. Stubbornly, I directed my vision back in time to the Ocean Palace, and saw my sister mouth Crono's name, then attempt to slog through the freezing water to an opening. Her sodden robes dragged her down, and another temporal discontinuity pulled her away, into darkness again. 

Frustrated, I chose to check on Gil. Instantly, I could see why Gaspar had gotten a headache while checking on the distant future. The images so close to the split _almost_ stayed together, but every so often a wave in one world would hit the boat a fraction of an instant earlier than it did in the other, or one of the Gils I was looking at would make a small gesture that the other didn't, and make the boy look, for an instant, like he had three hands. Thirteen hundred years further on, everything must have been painfully scrambled. 

"I see what you mean by the damned spell being useless," I grumbled, and walked back over to the spell-circle in the corner of the platform. 

"You're going?" Gaspar sounded almost disappointed. 

"I might as well search another era while I'm waiting for the split to, as you put it, 'resolve itself'," I said. "Not that I expect that I'm going to find anything. I'm beginning to think that Belthasar knows _exactly_ where Schala is, and is going to a great deal of trouble to make certain that I can't find her. After I catch up with that old bastard, it is going to take them days to find enough pieces of what's left to hold a funeral." 

"Prince Janus—" 

I gave the old man a cold look. "Gaspar, he's deliberately thwarting me. Do you really expect me to ignore that?" 

"Expect? No, but I did _hope_ . . . however, I suppose the way in which your experiences have shaped you hasn't made you terribly merciful. Just . . . please, when you do, as you say, catch up to him, will you give him a chance to explain?" 

I scowled. "I'll try. That's all I can or will promise." 

I chose the year 221 of the Guardian calendar almost at random and began the spell before Gaspar could say anything further. This time, it worked, and I found myself in a forest glade near the site of a small, rough village that would one day be named Truce. 

Schala wasn't in the third century, of course, but I took my time proving that to myself, following Gil's progress through El Nido by letter: I would send one out and each of him would send one back, my original apparently duplicating itself to each timeline. At first, the pairs of letters were identical, but they began to diverge as the two Gils worked their way down toward the southeastern corner of the archipelago, where the research center that had fallen through time would have been located. One of them was unable to penetrate into the area, called by the locals the Sea of Eden, and had to turn back. The other . . . 

_This place is eerie,_ I read, perched in a tree outside the proto-Truce. It was a location in which I was unlikely to be disturbed by passers-by, but I was spending so much time in such places that I was beginning to feel rather like a large and ungainly bird. _The waves are frozen in the act of breaking. It is as though I have stepped into a painting . . . except that a painting wouldn't have this sense of foreboding about it._

_There is a tower at the center of this sea, a great jagged monster of a thing that seems to be made of parts of other buildings. It may be some time before I reach it, however, because the raised crests of the frozen waves are impassable, and the valleys between are full of the oddest monsters I have ever seen. Some of them are robots, like those Lucca builds, and the others I will not even attempt to describe. My rod is seeing more use here than it did during all the time that we travelled together, and I think you were right: compared to your scythe, it is an inferior weapon. Nevertheless, I am not about to abandon it now._

It was several days before the next letter arrived, and I read, _I have reached the central tower. It stands at the middle of a ruined and deformed city that I can only assume to come from the future, as I have never before seen anything remotely like it, even without taking the deformities into consideration. The tower itself seems to indeed be a meld of several other buildings, and makes no more sense on the inside than the out. There are ghosts here, Janus, creatures that loosely have the form of men, but walk the same predetermined paths over and over again . . . For all I know, they may have been doing so for eternity. Some of them will speak when I address them, but what they say never makes any sense. They seem to be unaware of the ruin around them._

_Right now, I am camped in what seems to be the tower's innermost room. There is no way onward from here save what appears to be one of the space-time Gates you have sometimes described to me. After I have rested, I intend to attempt to find out where it leads._

But I never received another message from that Gil, and was never to discover exactly what happened to him. My own increasingly frantic letters met with incomprehension from his duplicate in the other world, and silence from the one I wanted to contact. I even went to the End of Time and attempted to transport myself to him, hoping that if I focussed my mind on only one of the timelines, I would be able to project myself there, but I was not successful. Some evidence that came to my attention much later suggests that that version of my apprentice may have survived, but there is not, and I suppose will never now be, any proof. 

Having scoured El Nido and found no trace of Schala, the surviving Gil began to rove aimlessly across the world, looking for what he described as "adventure". Some of the notes that he sent back, which became fewer and briefer as time went by, seemed to me to describe more foolishness than anything else, but I forbore to comment. Ever so often, there would be a fragment of interesting information mixed into what he wrote, such as his remarks on the new Magic Guild that was coming into being as more and more adult Guardian civilians underwent catalysis, or his description of a brief return to Truce, the orphanage Lucca had brought into being, and a six-year-old Kid. Lucca herself seldom wrote. She seemed to be too busy, for which I could not blame her. 

It was five years after the timelines split apart, after I had explored three randomly-chosen eras and found, as I had expected, no trace of my sister, that I received the news that chilled me to the core. 

_Returned to Truce to find orphanage in flames. Pattern suggests arson. Rescued Kid; no sign of Lucca. Other children mostly dead. Will write again later. Gil._ The letter bore a spray of ashy fingerprints. 

I forced myself to be patient. If Gil was in pursuit of the culprits, or of Lucca, or even injured himself, a dozen sheets of paper with _What?!_ written on them would do neither of us any good. And twelve hours later, I was finally rewarded. 

_I fear that matters are becoming worse and worse, but let me tell the story in order._

_I reached the edge of Truce last night only to see the sky to the south lit with fire. As you know, I cannot teleport over much distance, so it took me three jumps to reach the Ashtears' home. The building was burning and had clearly been in that state for some time._

_I cast a self-contained-environment spell on myself and went inside, only to find that most of the inhabitants had already succumbed to the heat and smoke. Kid was lying unconscious in the rearmost room, the one that was still Lucca's shop when you were last here, which was less damaged than the remainder of the building. I had to lower my spell for an instant in order to pick her up, and even in that short time, the heat was enough to leave the skin of my hands and face bright red. Kid had mild to moderate burns over most of her body, but the healer in Truce has taken care of all but the worst of those. She is in some discomfort, and will need time to work her skin back to suppleness, but I am told there will be no serious scars._

_Fortunately, Lara was up at the new Castle Guardia that night. Lucca should have been at the house, but I found no sign of her . . . which brings me to the other complication in my story. Apparently, the day before the fire, a man and a woman, travellers, were asking about Lucca in Truce. They are quite a distinctive pair: the man is a Mystic, or perhaps a demi-human from the south, and combines characteristics of human and feline, and the woman, although seemingly human, wears an elaborate costume. I am told that the man calls himself Lynx . . . and while Kid has not woken yet, she has several times spoken that name in her sleep._

_I think that this Lynx must have kidnapped Lucca, and then set the fire to conceal this fact. What his purpose may be, I do not know, but I intend to leave Kid in Lara's care, and pursue him._

_I only hope that I am not too late._

I closed my hand into a fist around the letter, and crumpling paper crackled softly in the silence of the forest glade where I had paused to read. 

_And so, once again, my worst fears are realized,_ I thought. _This Lynx . . . if the universe ever gives me access to him, I will kill him. Slowly._

Impotence enrages me as nothing else can. I was beginning to think that if some opportunity for constructive action didn't arise soon, I would go very messily insane. 

Constructive action . . . 

_I've been going about this all wrong,_ I thought. _Flitting from hither to yon, hoping to pick up her trail by random chance . . . I should have known better, but I suppose the time I spent scouring the world of the Fall set a certain pattern in my mind. But the way to track a creature isn't to wander around at random: you go to the last place where you_ know _it was, and then work outward._

And the last place where I knew Schala had been was the Darkness Beyond Time. 

* * *

"The Darkness . . . Why would you want to go there?" Gaspar responded to my request for directions with a question of his own. 

"Because searching random bits of history isn't getting me anywhere," I replied tersely. 

The Guru sighed. "You may find that searching the Darkness for traces of her will be a much larger task. The Darkness is . . . well . . . what do you understand of the structure of Time?" 

"Enough to know that calling this place 'the End of Time' is deceptive," I replied. "It's more like the center—the hub." 

"That's a very good analogy, actually," Gaspar said. "This is the hub of the wheel, the Gates are the spokes, the flow of time in the normal world is the rim . . . and the Darkness is the environment beyond the edges of the wheel, where shavings from the rim are deposited as it wears down. It is theoretically infinite in extent—and worse, there is more than one of it. It is pockmarked with places where even angels can lose their way . . . and while you may be exceptional, Prince Janus, you are still only a man." 

I gave him a cold look. "Save your fearmongering for someone who is disturbed by the thought of his dissolution. Now, what did you mean, 'there is more than one of it'?" 

The old man sighed again. "Well, I've told you that the Darkness contains futures invalidated by time travellers, correct? But time travellers aren't the only ones who change the future—people who have never left their own time periods do that every day. And when they make a major change, the universe divides itself into two new, completely separate universes." 

"Rather like an amoeba," I mused. "And each universe would then possess its own Darkness Beyond Time, containing bits of sloughed-off futures. I fail to see how this is important." 

"It wouldn't be, except for one thing: there are paths between our Darkness Beyond Time and the ones . . . next door, so to speak. Those are the places where angels lose their way. You could end up in a universe full of Reptites, or one which was hammered flat by Lavos in the distant past . . . anything is possible, anything at all." 

"Hmph. In that case, I suppose I'll have to mark my path carefully. Now stop wasting my time and tell me how to get there!" 

Of course, it wasn't so simple. It took him more than half an hour to precisely describe just where the Darkness Beyond Time was—and that was in High Zeala. I doubt an explanation would even have been possible in any other language. In any case, he had nothing more to offer than that description, since he had never been interested in entering the Darkness himself. That meant I had to craft my own spell to do so, which was not a simple undertaking . . . but at least it was forward progress. 

I found myself an empty cave in a quiet era where human life was thin on the ground and began my work, occasionally slipping through time to take a useful book or two either from the collection in my own vault or—thrice only, and with very careful timing—from the great library at Kajar. Now and again, Gil wrote me with some tidbit. 

_I have picked up Lynx's trail, and he appears to be heading south, through Porre. What puzzles—and troubles— me is the way the Porrean military appears to be treating him. They are clearly allies of a sort, and yet I would not have thought that Porre wanted to re-inflame the conflict with Guardia by attacking one of that nation's foremost citizens . . . or, for that matter, that they would wish to lose access to their best source of advanced weapon prototypes! And yet, from the reports I have heard of his progress, it is clear that Lucca is with him . . ._

And then, a week or so later: _Lynx is headed for El Nido, although what he may want there, I cannot say. However, I have begun picking up traces of rumours about an artefact called the Frozen Flame . . . Am I remembering correctly that that was the name of the heart of Lavos, which gave magic to mankind?_

That caused the first more-than-momentary interruption in my singleminded concentration on the new spell. I had almost forgotten about the Frozen Flame, but Gil was right: we hadn't destroyed it during our Lavos-hunt, so it was possible that it still existed, and had been retrieved from the bottom of the ocean. 

Did that mean that part of Lavos was still alive? 

It was a disquieting question, but again not one that I could do anything about at the moment, and so I once again threw myself into my spellweaving. 

The spell was nearly complete when I received Gil's next letter. It was brief. 

_Lynx has entered the Sea of Eden with Lucca in tow. I regret, but I am unable to pursue him further._

_You did what you could,_ I wrote back. _Get back to Truce and check on Kid._

Three days later, my new spell was ready for testing. Like my time-travel spell and my old summons to Lavos, it required a visual pattern for containment and reinforcement . . . although in this case, the pattern was not a true circle, but a crescent-like formation. It felt wrong as I drew it out, subtly unbalanced, but my calculations showed that that unbalance was itself necessary to what I was trying to do. 

I spoke the incantation slowly, testing the fabric of the spell as it formed up around me. The initial stages seemed solid enough, so I let it take in more of my power . . . and then I was falling. 

I gulped an elixir in midair, and was able to turn that into "flying" . . . but I had no orientation. Everything around me was in darkness. Only gravity's insidious tugging enabled me to separate "up" from "down". And conjuring a light showed me . . . nothing. Emptiness. 

With a thin smile, I allowed myself to resume falling, but in a more controlled manner now. If there was a _down_ then there had to be something there to tug at me, or so was my reasoning. And after a little while, I passed through a . . . warding spell? Forcefield? Membrane? Some kind of invisible barrier, in any case. And beyond it, there was light. 

I landed lightly on a piece of gritty grey ground. Above and around me, the air was filled with what must have been windblown dust, now frozen in place. There was sky here, grey louring clouds poised directly above my head, but to my left, the world was cut off by more blackness before reaching the horizon. 

"I know this place," I said aloud. Ground sown with dust and ashes, and not far away, the ruin of a curved wall poking up through the grim layers . . . this was Robo's future, the one that Crono and I and the others had all conspired to destroy. Or at least, a chunk of it. 

I extended my senses as best I could, but there was nothing alive here. The world was frozen at the moment of its invalidation . . . and then I caught the barest hint of a breath of magic, somewhere far away. 

With my sister's name on my lips, I kicked off the ground and threw myself toward it, with the cold air streaming by bringing tears to my eyes . . . but it was not Schala that I found. Instead, another figure, equally familiar, lay discarded on the ground like a broken toy. 

How had Lucca come to be here? Had she been flung into this place by Lynx when he had no more use for her? _How,_ when it had taken me more than a month of research to assemble my own transport spell? Why not just kill her and burn the body, instead of resorting to such an elaborate ploy . . . ? 

She was still breathing, and I hesitated for a timeless instant before I dropped to the ground and knelt beside her. Schala was still out there somewhere, I knew, but taking Lucca somewhere safe would require only a few minutes out of the time I would have, in any case, only have been able to spend wandering around aimlessly, looking for some form of clue. I could see no sign of gross injury, so the scientist's unconsciousness had to be the result of some drug or enchantment, but even if she was healthy when she awoke, it was unlikely that she would have been able to find her way back to the real world on her own. 

I had painted the second crescent, the one I had known I would need for the return spell, on a square of felt, which I now spread out on the ground before lifting Lucca into my arms. 

"You could stand to lose some weight," I told her as I staggered to my feet, but neither the remark nor the rough jostling was sufficient to wake her. 

Where to take her, that was the question. My access to her proper time was still barred, so I couldn't take her back there. And the second-best choice was . . . 

I took us to the edge of the forest. Once there, I had to set Lucca down for a moment so that I could drain a vial of ether. That gave me enough magic back to draw my normal illusion across my face, and cast a strengthening spell before picking her up again. Then I strode out of the shadow of the trees and walked right over to the drawbridge that provided the main access to Guardia Castle in this era. 

The guards on the far side of the moat ignored me as I walked past them—in peacetime, their presence was little more than a formality, although they would no doubt have stopped me had I been in my proper persona. It would be many years before the Guardians of this era shed their automatic distrust of anyone obviously not human, I suspected. 

The courtyard, with its outbuildings, was crowded. A hundred or more people lived and worked in this part of the castle, and there were visitors and merchants adding to the crush. I and my burden received more than a few glances, but no one attempted to stop me. It wasn't until I reached the entrance to the keep, or what some people would have described as the castle proper, that a guard politely asked my business. 

"I'm looking for a frog named Glenn," I said, and the man's mouth twitched. 

"Lieutenant Glenn? He should be down in the barracks at this time of day. I'll send someone to guide you there—" 

"That won't be necessary," I cut him off. "I know the way." And I forced myself to add, "Thank you all the same." 

"As you like, then." And the guard returned to surveying the courtyard. 

More guards watched me, but didn't attempt to stop me, as I entered the building, turned left, and followed the hallway to a stairwell that led down into the basement that contained the barracks of the Knight of the Square Table. Several of the beds there were occupied, and from one came the peculiar throaty noise that passed for snoring in an anthropoid frog. 

Not having a hand free, I walked over and kicked the mattress. The snoring stopped, and if I hadn't taken a step backward and to the side, I would have found the point of the Masamune at my throat. 

"Put that toy away before I have to break it again," I snapped. 

Glenn, who was crouched awkwardly beside the bed wearing a pair of thin linen trousers and nothing else, blinked. "Then . . . 'tis truly thee! I had thought that I yet dreamed. Why art thou here, and . . . Lucca? I had thought never to see thee, or her, again." 

"It's a bit of a long story," I said, "and I'll warn you, while only five years may have elapsed for you since the three of us were last together, for us it's been closer to fifteen." 

"Then . . . hast thou found . . . ?" 

I shook my head. "For some reason, my quest keeps sprouting complications and getting interrupted. I promise I'll tell you everything, but I'd like to do it sitting down and without half the population of the castle listening in, since I've come to the conclusion that placing too much knowledge of the future in the hands of the wrong people is dangerous." 

Glenn nodded. "Lay her on my bed for now, and I will have a guest suite made ready." He slammed the Masamune back into the scabbard that hung from the bedpost, turned, and drew a deep breath. " _Thou!_ Page! Have the Green Suite opened and aired, that it may be put at the disposal of my friends." Then he returned his attention to me. "Thou look'st tired." 

"The spell I used to get here is draining," I explained, laying Lucca down on the rumpled blankets. After a moment's hesitation, I sat down on the edge of the bed, watching Glenn rummage through the chest at its foot, occasionally pausing to draw on a piece of the padded underclothing so familiar to anyone who often wore armour. "I haven't been back to this era since we parted ways," I said. "Is there anything I should know?" 

Glenn hesitated in the act of putting on a shirt. "Well . . . 'Tis fortunate that thou hast taken on a more human seeming. The war may be over, but Mystics are still not well- liked here, as thou may'st have expected. I do what I can, but . . ." And he shrugged. 

"I'd better be careful not to let this illusion drop, then," I observed. "And . . . your personal circumstances?" 

A throaty croak. "I am to become Knight-Captain when the present holder of that office retires, as he will do in but a few more years . . . 'Tis passing strange. Before thou didst inflict this curse on me, I would ne'er have aimed so high." 

"Would you like it removed?" I asked. "That curse, I mean." 

"I thought . . . only with thy death . . ." Glenn blinked. 

I smiled thinly. "My death is sufficient to remove it, but it isn't _necessary_. I can cancel it at any time." 

"Then why didst thou not make the offer when we were travelling together?" 

"You never asked me about it," I said with a shrug, "and it just didn't occur to me. You may have noticed that it isn't in my nature to be . . . nice." 

Glenn laughed. "Aye, 'tis true!" Then he sobered. "As for the curse . . . let me think on it for a time. Odd though it may seem to thee, I have grown . . . accustomed . . . to this form. I am not altogether certain that I wish to relearn how to be a man." 

My mouth tightened, for I wasn't about to tell him that I understood perfectly. 

* * *

The Green Suite consisted of two bedrooms and a sitting room, all of which smelled slightly musty with disuse. I placed Lucca on the bed in the larger room. The healer attached to the Knights had already examined her and agreed with my diagnosis, such as it was: no physical injury, and she would probably wake when she was ready. 

In the sitting room, I told Glenn my story . . . or at least the first part of it, up to the sacking of Medina. While describing the aftermath of that, I found myself going hoarse. 

"Enough for now," the frog said. "If thou dost lose thy voice, 'twill be days before I learn the rest. Thou wouldst do well to eat and drink before continuing. I'll have a light luncheon brought." 

I gestured for him to go ahead. A healing spell might have been more effective than a meal, but if I asked him, Glenn would probably insist on doing that disturbing thing with his tongue . . . 

The food was . . . undistinguished, but edible. Fortunately, my last meal had been raw rabbit, so my problematic cravings wouldn't be likely to stir until tomorrow. I caught Glenn watching me as I sliced an apple into wedges, and raised an ironic eyebrow in his direction. 

"'Tis merely that it does not seem like thee to be so dainty with thy food," he said. 

I shrugged. "I'm not, for the most part, but if I bite straight into an apple, it tends to get caught in my fangs." My voice had recovered somewhat, and there was a goblet of watered wine on the table by my left hand that would hopefully prevent further deterioration for a while. The wine itself was harsh, second-rate at best, and I suspected that the goblet, which purported to be silver, was really only silver plate over bronze or pewter. _How I've come down in the world,_ I mused, eating an apple wedge. As ruler of the Mystics, I had been able to command the best wines the world had to offer, and table services of whatever metal I wanted. Of course, almost all of it had been looted from humans . . . 

It was remarkable how a few years of civilization was able to blur the memory of half a decade of living in a primitive stone hut on a diet of raw fish. _Or perhaps this time period is just particularly bad for me._

"I suppose I might as well continue from where I left off," I said, finishing the apple. The tray of food was almost empty now in any case. "After I returned to Truce that morning—" 

The door that led out of the suite opened unexpectedly, and I was instantly on my feet and reaching for my scythe. Fortunately, I realized who was standing there before I managed to draw it out. 

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to startle you. Glenn hardly seems to know anyone outside the castle these days, so I was . . . curious as to what kind of person would walk calmly up to a guard while carrying an unconscious woman in his arms and ask about him." 

"Majesty, I fear that 'tis . . . something of a long story . . ." Glenn's throat worked, and he glanced pleadingly at me, although his eyes quickly flickered back to Queen Leene. 

"Glenn and I are . . . old acquaintances," I offered, amused. "And, on one particularly memorable occasion, we were also comrades in arms. The unconscious woman you mentioned is a mutual friend, so this seemed as good a place to bring her as any." 

"'Tis Lucca that he brought, Majesty," Glenn added. 

"Lucca Ashtear? How did she come to be . . . here?" 

"Rather than in the future where she belongs, you mean?" I said. "That, your Majesty, is an extremely long story. Suffice to say that, being unable to take her back there, I brought her here instead." 

"But if you know that, and know Lucca, and Glenn . . . then you must have been one of Crono's companions, and yet I don't remember you . . ." When she frowned, Leene didn't look nearly so much like Marle as she did at other times . . . although I suspected that that was because someone had taken the time to train her out of the normal tendency to wrinkle her forehead. 

"I didn't join them until quite late in their journey, and I kept to myself during the brief period that you were in Crono's home era, so we were never introduced," I explained quietly. "My name is Janus Zeal." The bow I offered her was the one Zealish court protocol said was appropriate between two people of roughly equal rank, although I doubt it was ever meant to apply to a disinherited prince and deposed ruler meeting the spouse of a reigning monarch. 

"Janus Zeal! But then you are . . ." She looked from me to Glenn, and back again. Marle's ancestress wasn't stupid. It was clear that she _did_ know who I was (or had been), but didn't want to make an issue of it, or even say it out loud, if Glenn wouldn't. "Perhaps it would be best if we kept your presence here quiet." 

I grimaced. "Since I have no particular desire to try to depopulate half of Guardia singlehandedly, that would very likely be best. I certainly have no intention of mentioning my . . . other name . . . or my history while I'm here. If I hadn't needed a safe place to leave Lucca, I would never have returned to this era unless some information turned up suggesting my sister was here." 

"Then you don't intend to stay?" 

"I expect to leave sometime tomorrow, unless Glenn decides to take me up on the offer I made him shortly after I arrived," I replied. 

"Offer?" 

"He said he would undo . . . this . . . did I wish it so," Glenn said, accompanying the words with a vague gesture at himself. 

"Oh, Glenn, that's wonderful! I don't understand why you're still—" 

I held up my hand. "I can't do it until just before I depart—otherwise, I might as well stand in the middle of the courtyard and announce my other name to everyone within earshot. And Glenn hasn't yet accepted." 

"Glenn . . ." 

The frog cleared his throat. "Majesty . . . if 'tis _thy_ wish, then I will do it. Although I would be happier if I knew if the enchantment's dissipation would return me to the exact state I was in when it was cast, or I will be my proper age . . ." 

"Even I don't know that," I admitted. "You represent my only non-test use of that particular spell, and the grimoire I found it in didn't have anything to say about the consequences of breakage after long-term use. And the details of the spell itself are too fuzzy in my mind now to attempt an analysis without fetching that grimoire." 

Glenn grimaced, which looked rather peculiar. "I would have thee break it nonetheless, although I could do without being an experiment. Majesty, art thou not scheduled to preside over court at this hour?" 

Leene glanced out the window, and frowned. "There are times that I could do without you being right," she admitted. "Glenn, I'll see you this evening, I hope. Janus, it was . . . interesting . . . to meet you." She curtseyed to us, then gathered up her skirts and swept out the door. 

"I didn't know you had a . . . romantic interest . . . in your queen," I said when we were alone again. 

Glenn's throat worked, and he blushed a brownish colour. "I have known Leene since we were children. We are close friends, naught more." 

_While her husband remains alive, anyway,_ I thought with amusement . . . and a tinge of sadness. Glenn, like his friend Cyrus, was too honourable for his own good. "I believe I was about to continue on into the events after Medina . . ." 

Suddenly, there was a soft rustling sound. I frowned, reached into a pocket . . . and pulled out a new letter from Gil. 

"A moment," I said, and unfolded it. 

The news was . . . not what I had hoped for. 

_Janus, I regret to inform you that I returned to Guardia only to find that things have gotten immeasurably worse. Not long after I left to follow Lynx, Lara collapsed—her condition was not serious, but Kid had to be placed in the care of another. Her new guardian was . . . not well-chosen, and would not permit her to see her adoptive grandmother. Kid, believing that Lucca and Lara were both dead, ran away to seek Lynx herself. Her trail is now more than two weeks cold, and I am not optimistic about catching up to her. My only grounds for hope are that she has your sister's pendant with her._

I swore tiredly and got out some paper of my own, and a pen. 

_First of all, Lucca is alive,_ I wrote, _although it may be some time before she is able to return home. As for Kid: if you receive no certain news of her whereabouts within a month, I suggest that you return to El Nido and keep an eye on Lynx. If he is her goal, she will be there . . . sooner or later. I have every confidence in her abilities._

A quick spell dried the ink, and then I sent the note on. Glenn, who had picked up the letter from Gil and read it in silence, looked at me. 

"So thy niece is missing. Who is this . . . Lynx?" 

"The enemy," I said quietly. "Beyond that . . . I don't know." 

* * *

"This won't . . . hurt Glenn, will it?" 

It was the next morning in the sitting room of the Green Suite, and Leene had decided to make herself a witness to our spellbreaking. I wasn't pleased about that, but there was a limit to the degree to which I could let her know it. 

"Not permanently, but the process of rearranging his bones and muscles is bound to be painful while it's going on," I said. 

Glenn swallowed, but said, "'Twill not be near so painful as the first time, Majesty. Then I was alone and terrified; now I am among friends." His eyes were bloodshot: to my surprise, he had broken down and cried for quite a while last night, when I had told him what had happened to Crono and Marle. "I am ready," he added to me. "Do thy worst." 

I said three words in High Zeala and narrowed my eyes. Yes, there they were: the threads of my old spell, fire magic entwined with the residue of shadow left by elemental cloaking. I hooked my fingers around one and yanked. 

Glenn howled with pain, twisting as the air shimmered around him. I backed away half a step to avoid being hit by a flailing arm as the shimmer changed shape. 

Glenn—Frog no longer—was on his knees by the time the shimmer faded. Slowly, he examined his hands, then ran his fingers over his face and through his hair, which was nearly as long as mine. He had quite a beard, too. 

"I suppose this means that I did indeed age while under thy spell," he observed. "'Twill take some effort to accustom myself to shaving again . . . but perhaps I will leave my hair as it is." He glanced down, and added, with a grimace, "It seems that I will need to buy myself a new wardrobe as well, for none of my trousers are any longer than these." And "these" were leaving a good handsbreath of bare calf above his low boots. "Majesty, by thy leave—" 

"What's going on? I heard screams." Lucca was standing in the door of the master bedroom, barefoot and rubbing her eyes. "What happened, anyway? The last thing I remember is Lynx— _Marle?!_ " Then she blinked and squinted a bit. "No, you're Queen Leene, aren't you? Um, I'm sorry if that sounds a bit disrespectful." 

"I think I speak for us all when I say that we are too glad to see thee awake to be much bothered with the niceties of language," Glenn said. 

Lucca blinked again. "Froggie . . . is that you?" 

"In the flesh. I regret if I woke thee, but my return to this form was . . . not pleasant while it was going on." 

"I can imagine. Still, it's about time." And I received a dark look that was clearly intended to hurt my feelings, if I'd had any. "Now is someone going to tell me what happened?" 

"I found you in the Darkness Beyond Time and brought you to the nearest accessible safe place I could think of," I explained briefly. "Now it's your turn. What happened after Lynx brought you to the Sea of Eden?" 

"Is that what the place on the other side of that rock wall is called? Huh. Well, it was kind of—no, scratch that, it was _really_ —weird. There's an entire installation from the future in there, you know." 

"I knew that something of the sort had been dropped there twelve thousand or so years ago," I said. "Are you telling me there's something still left of it?" 

"Actually, it's perfectly preserved . . . too perfectly, even for something with self-repair systems. And it's got ghosts wandering all over it." Lucca shuddered. "There's something really wrong with that place, but Lynx didn't exactly give me much time to figure out what it was." 

"He took thee there for a purpose, then," Glenn said. 

"Yeah—he wanted me to undo some of the repair work I did on Robo when we first found him." 

Now it was my turn to blink in surprise. Lynx kidnapping her to make her a tame weapons researcher or decipher technology from the future I could understand, but _Robo_? 

Fortunately, Lucca began to explain before I had to bring myself to ask. "Part of the installation back there is this huge computer called FATE. Lynx works for it, I think, but if I had to guess who built it, I'd say Belthasar—it looks like some of his stuff that I saw in the old future. Anyway, whoever did build it didn't trust the thing any further than they could throw it, so they incorporated Robo's central processing unit into it as a failsafe to keep it from going crazy and deciding it should exterminate humanity or something like that. Robo had some hardwired ethical circuitry I hooked back up when I was fixing him . . . Anyway, what Lynx wanted me to do was unhook it." 

I frowned. "He wanted you to set this computer free . . . but why?" 

"That's what I don't know," Lucca admitted, making a frustrated gesture. "Lynx wouldn't let Robo talk to me very much, and I wasn't allowed to access the databanks . . . the only thing I _do_ know is that one of the things Robo was doing there was keeping a door locked, and Lynx wanted to get through that door very badly." She hesitated for an instant before adding, "The door had a label on it, too. 'Project Kid.' I hope that's just coincidence. Anyway, I managed to modify some equipment I found there to throw me out into Time, but there was no way to target it. That must be how I ended up in that 'Darkness Beyond Time' place where you found me." 

My frown deepened. "Did Lynx ever mention a 'Frozen Flame'?" I asked, not certain why I was doing so. 

"Harle—the girl who was travelling with him—did. Lynx shut her up, though. I take it it's important." 

"The Frozen Flame is the last mortal remnant of Lavos," I explained, and saw both Glenn and Lucca shudder. "In Zeal, it was an object of myth and veneration. I have no doubt that it is, as you say, important here as well, but I have no idea how. There are still some significant pieces missing from this puzzle. But I do know that I would be a great deal happier if Lynx and his computer didn't know of it." 

"We can always go give them something more urgent to think about," Lucca suggested, her hands balling into fists. "I _owe_ that feline son-of-a-bitch—I don't know how many of the kids made it out of that fire he started, but I know it wasn't all of them!" 

"Except that there doesn't seem to be a way for any of us to get back to that time period," I said grimly, and gave her an abbreviated explanation of the split in the timeline and its consequences. 

But Lucca's hands didn't relax. "We can try to do it the hard way, right? Go back to the moment before the split, and then wait five years?" 

"Theoretically, it should be possible," I admitted. "But that would result in there being four of you running around, and . . ." 

"And what?" Lucca asked challengingly. 

I scowled and refused to answer. 

Glenn snorted. "From thy expression, the possibility of duplicating thyself doth give thee superstitious creepy feelings." 

"That's it," I snarled. "I'm turning you into a cockroach this time! _Ziera—_ " 

"Whoa! Janus—" Lucca grabbed the arm that I was bringing up to point at the ex-frog. I could have shaken loose . . . but chose not to. The moment's pause had cleared my head a little, and I was . . . embarrassed . . . at having flown off the handle that way. "He didn't mean it that way! Really!" 

"Especially since the thought of two of thee doth frighten me out of my wits," Glenn added. "That prickly pride of thine is difficult enough to deal with in the singular." 

"Anyway, back to the topic at hand," Lucca added. "Could you drop me off a day or so before the split happened? Then there's no risk to you. Maybe I can even stop it from happening! Did you ever find out where or how . . . ?" 

"Belthasar was responsible for it. That's all I know," I said. "Since we don't know what he was trying to do, either, I don't know if it's wise to try to interfere. And there appears to be no way that we can get at him to ask questions right now." Although theoretically that wasn't entirely true, I realized, but while Lucca might be willing to wait through five years of time to get at Lynx, I _wasn't_ willing to wait through over a thousand to get at Belthasar. Not yet. 

Lucca frowned and appeared to be deep in thought for a moment. "Belthasar . . . You're right, it's probably best not to mess with this without finding out what's going on, first. Hmmm. I think we need a Time Egg. Problem is, Kid has my prototype, and I don't know if I can reproduce it here . . . not to mention that it wasn't really finished anyway . . ." 

"Wait a moment," I snapped. "You were building a Time Egg? And you gave it to _Kid_?" 

"Not _gave_ it to her, exactly—she grabbed it from my workshop when Lynx showed up. Proving that she's almost as bright as her uncle, I guess," Lucca added with a smile. "I mean, it _was_ one of the things that people might have considered attacking me to get, if they'd known it existed, and they probably wouldn't have thought to check an eleven-year- old's pockets either." 

My fingers ran lightly over the steel crescent at my side. A Time Egg . . . Almost, I offered to take Lucca back to Zeal, where she would be able to have whatever resources she needed in abundance. Almost. But the remarks I'd made to Melchior about not altering the timeline, on that long ago day right after the Porrean invasion of Guardia, held true for Lucca as well. 

"I think the best thing you can probably do is drop me in Porre sometime around 1008," Lucca was saying. "I was corresponding with one of their scientists—a woman named Luccia—well, okay, she was still more of a girl then, but she might still be able to help me . . . and it minimizes the risk to the timeline. I hope. The last thing we need to do is resurrect Lavos over this." Almost as though she'd read my mind. 

"You are, of course, welcome to stay here as long as you need to," Queen Leene, who had been listening silently during all of this, said. "But I admit that there is likely very little we can do to help you with your work." 

"Aye," Glenn agreed, rubbing absently at his beard. He turned toward the door. "Forgive me, but I would take my leave now. I must shave, lest the itch drive me mad, and find some clothes that fit. Majesty . . ." 

"You don't need to ask my permission," Leene said with a smile. 

"But be careful who you talk to," I added, "or I _will_ turn you into a cockroach. And then step on you." 

Glenn chuckled. "Aye, and who _would_ I tell that Magus came openly to the gates of Castle Guardia, bearing such a tale . . . ? 'Twill be work enough explaining how I came to regain my proper form . . ." 

"Just say that the spell wore off with time," Lucca suggested. 

"I won't contradict that explanation if you choose to use it," Leene said. "Now go. You really do need a shave." 

Glenn bowed to her, then left. 

"It's good to see him as himself again," Leene said quietly. "We were children together, you know . . . Glenn and I and Cyrus." She smiled. "I was quite the tomboy in those days, although you may not believe it—always leaping to Glenn's defense when Cyrus wasn't around." She sighed. "Cyrus . . . Prince Janus, Glenn has told me something of your story, and I do understand that you killed my old friend in self-defense, but I hope you understand me when I say that I wish it had not been necessary." 

Cyrus . . . how long had it been since I had last even thought of him? "I offered him his life, at the very end," I said after a moment's pause. "He chose to die rather than betray Guardia. Make of that what you will." 

"It sounds . . . very like him," Leene admitted, with tears glittering in her eyes. 

* * *

As she had requested, I took Lucca to the year 1008, and left her on the outskirts of Porre early one morning with the understanding that I would be back for her at the end of two years—two years for her, at least—if she did not summon me sooner. She waved jauntily at me before setting off toward the city gates . . . and then I was alone again. 

Fortunately, I was used to my own company. 

With nothing better to do, I resumed searching the Darkness Beyond Time for any sign of Schala. Sometimes, I thought I sensed the faintest hint of her aura hanging in the emptiness, but there was never enough for me to trace it back to its source, and I often wondered if I wasn't hallucinating it altogether. 

The Darkness was . . . not an easy or pleasant place to explore. The jumbled fragments of broken time shifted around relative to one another, so that I often found myself returning unintentionally to the same location, and no doubt there were some bits that I missed altogether. Most of the time-frozen areas were empty, but every so often I would come across a person, frozen along with all the rest, and the implications of that . . . 

Still, many of the jumbled, broken places-that-never- were were quite fascinating. I once walked through what I believe must have been a Reptite city, and it was completely different from the work of any human civilization I was familiar with, low buildings of surprising grace set amongst a profusion of frozen greenery, and at the center, a tower whorled like a seashell. Surprisingly, it was as empty of inhabitants as the more familiar venues, making me wonder where they had all gone when their existence was negated. Did the people of these broken timelines merge with their closest counterparts in the real world, as had apparently happened to me when I had interfered with the last days of Zeal? Indeed, does Time—or the Entity— conspire to bring forth the same people in every version of history, leaving behind only the handful which it could not find any excuse to recreate? 

Are the dreams we see at night shadow memories of times that now never were, and can never be again? 

Periodically, Gil would send me letters detailing his doings . . . and Kid's. It took him months, but he did locate her in Porre. By that time, however, she had already taken up theft as an avocation, and he decided not to interfere directly, instead ghosting along behind her in the shadows as she committed burglaries and doing what he could to help her without being noticed. Sometimes I even agreed with his decision to do things that way. At others, I was tempted to strangle him, so it was probably fortunate for him that he was temporarily out of my reach. 

Lucca's initial letters from Porre were cheerful, but their tone . . . changed as time went on. The problem appeared to be frustration, mostly: she wasn't making nearly as much progress on the Time Egg as she had hoped she would. 

_I know I've forgotten something,_ she wrote at one point. _Something simple, trivial, and so obvious that it_ should _be staring me right in the face. I wish I had my notes, but they don't exist yet in this time period._

But when I met her again, on the outskirts of Porre in 1010, she was carrying an oval object with her, although rather than being the solid lump of surface-scarred tan I would have expected, it was a reddish thing with openings in its sides that gave access to a hollow center. 

Lucca scowled as I examined it. "It isn't even as functional as my first one," she said. "I suppose I should ask Gaspar for advice—he's the only one who knows how the one we used to recover Crono was really made—but it seems like so much of a cop-out! Aargh!" 

"I thought that you considered my preference for refusing all aid, even that freely offered, foolish," I said with amusement. 

Lucca stared at me. Then she grinned. "Heh. You're right. Guess I have a certain amount of prickly pride of my own. Fine. Besides, we'd have to go to the End of Time anyway to get out of here, right?" 

I shrugged. "We would have to pass through some temporally invariant location—not necessarily the End of Time, although it is the easiest." 

"'Temporally invariant location' . . . Yeah, I guess there are a couple of other places that qualify, aren't there? The Darkness Beyond Time, for one. Fine, let's go see Gaspar." 

When we woke the old man, he examined her proto- Time-Egg with considerable interest. 

"It took me five years to get this far," he said. "I suppose that knowing that it's possible makes all the difference." 

"But what do I have to do to make it _work_?" Lucca asked. "It's useless like this!" 

"As far as I can see, there are two problems. One is that you made a false assumption regarding trans-temporal equality, resulting in construction errors _here_ and _here_." Gaspar pointed out two portions of the Egg with little conjured etheric glows, and Lucca picked it up and examined them through what I assumed was a magnification device. 

"Damn, I am such an idiot! _That's_ what I forgot!" She was grinning as she said it. "So what's the other problem?" 

The Guru shuffled his feet. "Well, pardon me for asking, but . . . you constructed that Egg purely by mechanical methods, correct?" 

"Well, yes, of course I did—I mean, I'm a scientist and an engineer. Mechanics and electronics are what I do!" 

"But my original was both mechanical and magical, since, as a Guru of Zeal, that is what _I_ do," Gaspar said with a small smile. Then it faded as he added, "Or at least, it's what I _did_. But the Time Egg you used to revive Crono had several layers of complex spells on it. It would be impossible for you to reconstruct it completely using only scientific methods." 

Lucca handed the Time Egg back over to him so that she could pull a pad of paper and a formidable-looking mechanical writing instrument out of her pockets. "So what were the spells?" 

"Even if I could reconstruct them without my notes, you would be unable to cast them, Lucca. Actually, even I couldn't cast them these days—not here. They're bi-elemental, you see." 

"They're . . . which?" 

"Bi-elemental," I said impatiently. "Combining the energies of two different elements. Zeal's most complex magical art, and one that I never had the opportunity to learn." 

"Sort of like a two-person attack technique? I didn't know you could do that. But why can't you do it anymore, Gaspar?" 

"Because I lack the resources. There are two ways of manipulating magical energy not of your own element—" 

"Three, actually," I corrected. 

Gaspar inclined his head. "Pardon me—I tend to forget about elemental cloaking, since it is purely a shadow art. In any case, there are two such methods available to a lightning- element like myself: invoking talismans created by someone else, and manipulating undifferentiated magical energy from an external source such as the Sun Stone. Bi-elemental spellcasting requires the invocation of both one's native elemental abilities and external energies simultaneously . . . so without a powerful external energy source, I can't cast the Time Egg spells. Although Prince Janus might be able to, if I could remember them—I don't think there was ever any research on whether elemental cloaking can be used to enable bi-elementality, but in theory it should be possible." 

"And because these spells are . . . lightning plus shadow? . . . I'd never be able to cast them," Lucca worked out. "Still, could you tell me what you do remember? We might be able to patch something that would work together if we knew where to start. Or . . . could we retrieve your notes from Zeal?" 

"Even if you did, they wouldn't do you much good," Gaspar said. "I'm afraid I wrote them in a sort of personal shorthand, and I've forgotten part of the key." He shrugged embarassedly. "You'll have to settle for what I remember." 

As Gaspar began his explanation, Lucca began, slowly, to write. As he continued to speak, however, she grew even slower, even though what he was describing wasn't—yet— particularly complex. Curious, I leaned over her shoulder. When I saw what she was doing, I interrupted. 

"Wait a moment." 

Gaspar stopped in mid-word. I twitched Lucca's writing materials from her fingers, flipped to a new page, and rapidly wrote down what the old Guru had been saying while the young scientist watched with interest. 

"I get it now—it's like mathematical notation, except for magic, right? One of you is going to have to teach me this stuff. No wonder I couldn't keep up." 

I spent an hour or so taking down Gaspar's lacework of half-remembered spells. When I was done, I had a mess of notations full of holes that came to abrupt and unexpected ends. Nearly two dozen spells, and not a single one of them complete. 

"This is going to take years to sort out," I said with a frown. 

"Well, it took me nearly two decades to create the originals," Gaspar said with a smile. "If you can get a working Time Egg in less than five years, I'm going to be surprised. Pleased, but surprised." 

I gave him a cold look. "Don't underestimate me." 

Gaspar's smile faded. "I don't. Neither your power, nor your intelligence . . . and especially not your persistence. I wouldn't expect anyone but a skilled research magician to be able to reconstruct my work at all, much less in so little time. If Zeal hadn't fallen, and Princess Schala had taken the throne, you would have been a natural successor to either myself or Belthasar when one of us retired." 

"Hmph." I couldn't decide whether to be flattered or offended. 

"Anyway," Lucca said, "we need to set up somewhere to do those five years' worth of work, right? How about, mmm, Choras in 1001? I don't think either of us was there during that period." 

I shrugged—it seemed to me to be as good a time and place as any other. 

* * *

"I must have done something wrong again—you have that 'if it weren't for the stupid Time Egg, she'd be hamburger' look on your face," Lucca observed. 

"I told you once that I'm not a very good teacher—and if you have the energy to invent ridiculous labels to attach to my facial expressions, try expending a little of it on checking over your work," I snapped. "By now, I would at least have expected you to have mastered the alphabet you're trying to work with." 

"This from the man I caught hammering a bolt into place with a monkey wrench yesterday!" 

"It worked, didn't it?" And I hadn't had time to go look for a hammer. 

"That isn't the point, and you know it!" Then Lucca visibly forced herself to relax. "You know, I think we've both had enough for today. Let's take a break." 

I scowled and turned away, staring without paying much real attention at a bunch of mechanical debris scattered across a bench. An exchange of information between Lucca and I—she teaching me the rudiments of the science and engineering that formed the cornerstone of her life, while I tried to impart to her some of my knowledge of magic—had seemed like a good idea in theory, but in practice, each session tended to end with mutual frustration. I understood mathematics and basic mechanics well enough, but electronics baffled me, and as for Lucca . . . her High Zeala was good enough for casual conversational purposes, but the Entity (or whatever it was that ensured that time travellers could communicate with the people they met in the past or the future) had left some odd gaps in her knowledge. 

She hadn't had to do more than describe the problem sketchily before I understood, for I'd experienced a variant of it myself when I'd first arrived in the sixth century. I still don't know exactly what happens to a man's brain with regard to language when he steps through a Gate, but it isn't that he really _learns_ the language of the time he arrives in. The best way I can think of to put it is that a sort of translation mechanism appears. In some senses, it's perfect, capable of taking the language that the time traveller hears or sees and turning it into the familiar, interpreting even nuance and metaphor flawlessly. However, it's limited in two ways. First, by target concepts: to give a simple example, a time traveller who is unaware of dogs, and then lands in a time period where they are commonplace, will not have the native word for _dog_ translated for him—the translation filter will ignore it, and he will have to learn it in the normal way. 

The second limitation has to do with writing: the traveller will perceive text as being written in his own language and alphabet, _until_ he hits one of those untranslatable words or focuses tightly on what he's actually seeing. At that point, the native writing will show through and baffle him. 

The problem Lucca was having was that her internal translator couldn't handle the magic-related vocabulary of High Zeala, and so she was having to learn each term—and the written language as well, at least to the extent needed to write down spells—the hard way. I'd done much the same in the sixth century, although it had been largely subconsciously and over a period of years. 

Lucca tipped her chair back from the table at which she was sitting, and stretched. "Time for lunch, I think—is potluck from the inn okay for you?—and then I'll go back to the Time Egg. And practice writing that stupid character a few more times until I can remember which way around it's supposed to go. I guess I'm just too old to be learning the alphabet over again," she added with a quick grin. 

"At least you spotted it this time," I grumbled. 

"You're such a grouch," came the reply. "Is it really that boring for you here?" 

"'Exasperating' would be a better word," I said. "I may have an infinite amount of time in which to hunt for Schala, but my sister is not immortal. She can only wait for so long for me to find her, and I keep getting drawn into things that have nothing to do with her—" 

"I doubt that Schala, wherever she is, is just waiting for you," Lucca said. "She's your sister, after all. If she's in danger, I'm sure she would be bright enough to try to escape." 

"She didn't before," I said tightly, then held up my hand to stop Lucca from replying. "Yes, I know that Zeal was a complex case, and that Schala had feelings for our mother that I lack . . . but she was always terribly afraid of hurting anyone. That was her weakness, as well as her strength. If escaping from danger meant fighting back, I doubt she would be able to do it." 

Lucca frowned. "I think you're underestimating her . . . but I've said that before, haven't I? And she's the only family you have left . . ." She sighed, and spread her hands. "I guess that means I shouldn't try to argue you out of worrying—it's one of the very few ways that you act human. I just wish there was something I could do to help." 

"Finishing the damned Time Egg would do it," I growled. 

* * *

I think we would have succeeded in meeting Gaspar's five-year deadline if events hadn't intervened. 

_I have made contact with Kid again,_ Gil wrote three years later. _She didn't recognize me—hardly surprising when she hasn't seen me since she was six . . . and in any case, I am still wearing the mask that I adopted after what happened on that nameless little island last year. She is travelling with a young man named Serge, in whom the local authorities appear to have developed an unhealthy interest. Both of them claim to have business at Viper Manor, the seat of the local governor, and I have manufactured an excuse to go there with them._

_Janus . . . I scarcely dare write this, but I think Kid is hunting for the Frozen Flame . . . although I dare not ask her why._

Normally, there were gaps of weeks or months between Gil's letters, so I was very surprised the next morning when I shifted position in my chair and heard the rustle of paper in my pocket. 

_So much happened at Viper Manor last night that I scarcely know where to begin,_ Gil wrote. _Although chronological order is as good a structure as any, I suppose. Very well, then._

_We accessed the building by climbing the cliffs on the ocean side and explored the ground and basement floors with surreptitious caution until we were able to steal the uniforms of some guards, which permitted us somewhat greater freedom of movement. However, we were unable to gain access to General Viper's quarters on the upper floors until we spoke to the manor's librarian._

_The librarian is a most unusual man. First, he is the first other active human mage I have found in El Nido: a strong lightning element. Secondly, he seems familiar, but that familiarity is deeply involved with the fuzziest parts of Alfador's kitten-memories, making it difficult for me to be certain whether or not it is meaningful. And thirdly . . . Janus, he knows about the dimensional split, and claims that Kid's companion Serge is the cause of it, that his escape from death ten years ago in the other universe was responsible for the division. He did not mention the involvement of a time traveller, and I was not able to speak to him alone._

_Even more peculiar was the series of events that took place once we found our way up to General Viper's study. First, there was an orb on his desk that all but hypnotized Serge. And then, when the general entered the room to confront us, he was followed by non other than Lynx! During the ensuing confrontation, Kid admitted that she was searching for the Frozen Flame, although I still do not entirely understand why . . . but Lynx knows of it. He claims that it lies hidden in the Sea of Eden. He mentioned that only briefly, however—his attention seemed to be focussed on Serge._

_I am beginning to believe that that young man is the key to everything that has been happening. Lynx called him "Chrono Trigger" and "Assassin of Time", but Serge appears to have no idea what the demi-human meant by that._

_I have one more piece of news to impart, and this you will not like. During our escape from the manor, Kid was injured by Lynx. We thought it only a scratch, but it appears that the weapon was poisoned, and the physician here in Guldove claims that the only possible antidote is Hydra Humour. However, there are no more hydras in El Nido . . . or at least, not in this El Nido. Serge believes that there may be some in the other dimension and has secured what he believes to be a method of travelling between the two (you would laugh: it is that amulet of Dalton's that you gave to Kid when she was still a toddler), and we are preparing to leave right now. If we are not successful, I will inform you, so that you may search out a hydra somewhere in time and extract its humour, although I expect that transporting a vial of it would completely destroy these talismans. Still, if it is a choice between that and Kid's life, I somehow think that you will not hesitate._

"Dalton's amulet is a dimensional travel device?" Lucca asked from over my left shoulder. 

I shrugged. "It's possible that the spell on it may have been sloppily enough constructed for that to be possible, yes—I believe the talisman was an heirloom of that fool's family." 

_Could the librarian have been Guru Belthasar?_ I wrote in my return letter, after some remarks about Lynx and the Frozen Flame. _If so, be sure to throttle the old bastard for me when you finally do get him alone. But strangle everything he knows about Schala out of him before you kill him. And don't worry about the hydra. I will find one if it is necessary._

The reply came within hours. _Belthasar! Yes, that is exactly who he was! I will return there and talk to him when the opportunity arises, but right now I think it best that I follow Serge—if Guru Belthasar is so deeply interested in this young man, he and his troubles must be important. We did find a hydra, and Kid is mostly recovered, so there is no need to concern yourself about that. Right now, we are on our way to talk to a man who may know more about Lynx and the Frozen Flame . . ._

"Janus, you're shaking—what's wrong?" 

I glanced up at Lucca, still reading over my shoulder, and smiled thinly. "The thwarted urge to action, I suppose." My hands really were shaking, and I flattened them on the surface of the desk at which I sat. 

"Yeah, I guess this must be even worse for you than for me—trusting people just isn't your thing, is it?" 

I shrugged. "I trust Gil more than most, but how can he possibly share my priorities? What memories he has of the fall of Zeal come from Alfador." 

"He knows how important all this is to you, though. For your sake, he'll work his ass off to see the Frozen Flame destroyed and Schala brought back." 

"Possibly," I said. "However, will he understand that those things must be done in that order?" 

Lucca patted my shoulder. I endured her touch with gritted teeth. She sighed. "Give him some credit. He isn't exactly stupid, you know." 

The next message came two days later. _Serge and Kid have decided to pursue Lynx and General Viper, so we are now headed for Fort Dragonia, on the far side of El Nido's largest island. As I understand it, the Fort was the location of the last stand of the descendants of the Reptites who were pulled sideways through time and into this world. What Lynx seeks in that place, I do not know, but it cannot be good. The General's actions seem somewhat more straightforward, however: it appears that he wishes to start a war with Porre. While I cannot entirely disapprove of the sentiment—despite being Porrean by birth myself—I do wonder if he is not being a little overly ambitious._

Another week of nothing, and then, _Once more, I scarcely know where to begin. I am sitting on the stone floor of the uppermost storey of Fort Dragonia, watching an injured General Viper struggle for breath and feeling scarcely better than he. It has been another momentous day._

_When we arrived here, General Viper engaged us in combat, but Lynx stabbed him in the back—literally—before the battle could run its course. Lynx then turned his attention to Serge, and there was . . . by the Entity, I can scarcely believe it! I am still not entirely certain of what happened, but Lynx's aura somehow spread to Serge . . . and then Serge struck me down with magic, and stabbed Kid . . . and Kid vanished, which I assume to have been the pendant that she inherited from Princess Schala acting to save her. Serge then pushed Lynx into what appeared to be some sort of dimensional distortion, and vanished himself, while I watched, paralyzed and semiconscious, as all this unfolded._

_There is one additional confusing thing that I must pass on to you: Lynx used magic without the aid of an Element Grid (they are common here) or any talisman that I could see, and yet his aura suggests that he is a latent, and of the wrong element for the spells he cast! It makes no sense._

_I do not know what I shall do now—return to the manor and try to speak to Belthasar, I suppose, since there are no other strings left for me to tug at._

I closed my eyes for a moment, fighting for self- control. 

I was letting Gil's letters get to me far too much, but I was still so damnably frustrated by my helplessness in all this. If ever I caught up with Belthasar, I was going to demonstrate some of the favourite torture methods of the sixth-century Mystics to him . . . but fantasizing about revenge was a waste of time. I needed to get back to working on the means to do it, instead. 

When I opened my eyes again, Lucca was giving me a pitying look. My hand trembled with the effort not to slap it off her face. 

It was a week before the next letter arrived. 

_I have some answers, but once again you are not going to like them,_ Gil wrote. 

_I was able, with some difficulty, to once again enter Viper Manor from the sea cliffs, only to find the building occupied by the Porrean army—indeed, my brother Norris was part of the expedition, although I don't expect that he would have recognized me even had he seen me. I slipped past them with the aid of some illusions and a little acting, and found my way to the library._

_At first, Belthasar would tell me nothing, but when I addressed him by name and title, and told him that you had sent me and I was not leaving without answers to my questions, he unbent a little . . . although not to the point of explaining anything in detail. He did, however, admit to some things. First of all, the research laboratory in the Sea of Eden was deliberately sent back in time by him—he engineered what appeared to be, to the inhabitants, an accident during a temporal experiment—although its exact point of arrival seems to have been chosen by Lavos. He was rather vague about the matter—deliberately so, I think. But apparently, Serge is the focal point of some sort of bizarre war between the Entity and the . . . computer? Is that the word? . . . that runs the research facility, but that war itself was not Belthasar's reason for dumping the facility into the past._

_Please brace yourself for the next part._

_Belthasar did cause the dimensional split, intentionally and with malice aforethought, but at first he would not tell me why. When I pressed him, he finally capitulated to the point of informing me that it was necessary in order to rescue Princess Schala . . . but he would not explain the connection, or even tell me where your sister was. We exchanged some harsh words at that point, and when he refused to say more, I attacked him. Unfortunately, he is a far greater mage than I. I am probably fortunate that he was merciful enough to leave me alive._

_When I woke again, I was lying on the floor of the library, and Belthasar was gone. Some searching turned up a secret room full of mechanical oddments and a Nu disguised as a local monster, but the creature did not know where its master had disappeared to, and there were no other clues._

" _Lavos_ decided when the research facility would end up?" Lucca asked from where she was once more reading over my shoulder. "Something doesn't add up there . . . Lavos had been edited out of the timeline by then! It breaks causality." 

"The Frozen Flame was—and still is—part of the timeline," I reminded her. "And it's part of Lavos. If it was responsible, Belthasar's statement could be true, if . . . incomplete." My hands flexed. I could almost feel the old Guru's scrawny neck between my fingers. Lies, half-truths, Schala, the Frozen Flame . . . Why would he fight so hard to keep me from finding out what was going on? _Or perhaps that should be phrased, what is he doing that he knows I would disapprove of? He's already seen to it that I can't interfere without a great deal of trouble and risk, so it must be something so serious that he thinks I would accept considerable trouble and risk in order to get in his way . . ._

_Wait._

_The Frozen Flame._

_Lavos._

No. Surely the old fool couldn't be meaning to . . . That was a ridiculous risk to take for the sake of one person, even if that person was Schala! 

"There's something bothering you," Lucca said. "C'mon, spill it." 

I shook my head. "Not yet. Not until I'm certain." 

Surely Belthasar wouldn't be mad enough to do something that would be audacious and dangerous even for me. 

Surely. 

What arrived from Gil next was two sheets of paper, one quite a bit older than the other. 

_Lynx is dead, and I have regained contact with Serge and Kid,_ he wrote on the newer one. _However, a new problem has arisen here—literally. Apparently the Entity is not happy with us, and it has resurrected a Reptite fortress from the bottom of the sea. Serge believes that we must climb it and fight what is at the top in order to end this, and I find that I agree with him . . . although I do not understand what any of this has to do with Princess Schala._

_I have enclosed a document which came to light after Kid rejoined us: a letter from Lucca to Kid, apparently left with Luccia of Porre quite some time ago. I thought you might be interested in asking its author what she was thinking when she wrote it, if nothing else._

I unfolded the other sheet of paper and read it with Lucca standing frozen at my shoulder. She didn't speak until I was done. 

"I left that with Luccia when I left Porre in 1010. It . . . seemed like a good idea at the time. I wanted to leave Kid with some indication that I was thinking of her, even if I couldn't reenter the timeline to be at her side. I'm sorry if it bothers you that I just assumed you would find a way back into the split timelines, but knowing you . . ." 

"Eventually, I will," I said flatly. "One way or the other. But were you really so disturbed by the possibilities inherent in what we did to stop Lavos?" 

Lucca's shoulders slumped. "Yes, I was . . . I am. How could I not be? I mean, you've said yourself that there are people trapped—frozen—in the Darkness Beyond Time. How many of those are we responsible for? People edited out of time . . . That's even worse than killing them in the normal way, isn't it? Doesn't it bother you?" 

I shrugged. "Why should it? A few more deaths . . . I was willing to wade through blood to get at Lavos. If it were to happen over again, that wouldn't be the part that I would change." Seeing the look on Lucca's face, I added, "For the rest of you, the hunt for Lavos was little more than a light-hearted adventure. For me, it was . . . something quite different. Leave it at that." 

My pocket rustled again, and my eyebrows shot up in surprise. I extricated the new sheet of paper and unfolded it. 

_This is a bit embarrassing,_ I read. _Kid has discovered that I took her letter, and she is . . . not pleased. I have had to explain to her a bit of my reasons: that the mysterious "Janus" of the letter is her (probable) uncle and my teacher, and that you have been barred from this portion of the timestream by some mechanism that no one really understands. She appears to be somewhat uncertain how she feels about the matter, but she_ is _certain that she wants the letter back._

_I did not mention Lucca to her. I felt that she should have the chance to decide whether or not to reveal herself._

Lucca had already walked around to the end of the desk to get a flat surface on which to write. 

_Gil, shame on you!_ I read at a right angle to the normal direction of the text. _You mean that, all this time, Kid's been convinced I'm dead?! If I catch up with you, I'm going to stretch your ears until they look like a cat's! The moment you get this letter, you're to show it to her, understand? —Lucca Ashtear_

_P.S.: Kid, sorry I didn't think to write you sooner, but I thought that purple-haired bone-brain would have told you that I escaped from Lynx and was all right, even if I couldn't get back. Keep your chin up, my girl, and with any luck we'll be together again soon._

"There," Lucca said, folding the paper. "Send that through." 

I did so, although I'm sure that my expression as I ran my finger along the runes on the transmission talisman looked a bit odd. 

I threw myself back into working on the Time Egg spells with a will—I had two-thirds of them untangled by that time, and was beginning to truly grasp the structure of the magic involved, but each still took a couple of weeks of careful work to fill in, and I still had a half-dozen to go when the end struck. 

_The time has come at which we must hazard everything,_ Gil wrote. _I know, now, where Princess Schala is, what must be done to save her, and why the dimensional split was necessary . . . as well as the nature of her connection with Serge._

_The destruction of the Ocean Palace flung your sister into the Darkness Beyond Time, where she unfortunately encountered some remnant of Lavos, and what you once described to me as "the worst-case scenario" came to pass. Your sister is still out there, trapped with—and within—that thing. Belthasar's entire design was seemingly intended to provide her with a means of separating herself from it. We are told that it could not be done by force._

_Kid is . . . Once more, I am not entirely certain of how to put this, but first, assure Lucca that her foster-daughter is well, and was overjoyed to hear that she is still alive. However, Kid is not what we thought she was. She is not truly Schala's daughter in any real sense—she has no father. Instead, she is Schala's clone, dispatched from the Darkness Beyond Time during what must have been very nearly your sister's last moments of sanity before the remnants of Lavos completely corrupted her mind._

_The reason she has blonde hair has yet to be explained, however._

_Serge is another matter entirely. It appears that Schala was instrumental in saving his life when he was injured at a very young age. In doing so, she exposed him to the power of the Frozen Flame—does the term "arbiter" mean anything to you? In any case, it is that event which made him the key to all this, although it was not what split the timelines. That seems to have occurred when Belthasar sent Kid back to save him a second time . . . but for this Kid, that is still in the future, if it happens at all after we are done._

_Soon, we will depart for the Darkness Beyond Time, there to confront what Princess Schala has become. If we succeed in rescuing her, it is my belief that the split in the timeline will heal itself, but if we do not . . . if we do not, I think you are the universe's last hope against the Time Devourer, as the Schala-Lavos being is called. Once it awakens fully, it will destroy everything. That must be prevented at all costs, as I think that even you would agree. I think your sister would prefer to die before she could break the world, and if it defeats us, then you alone may have the power to accomplish that._

My hand, closing involuntarily, crumpled the paper. _Schala!_

"Janus, it'll be okay. You won't have to kill her! If it comes to that, we'll find a way of doing what Kid and Serge couldn't." 

I shook my head. "He's right. She would have preferred to die before becoming . . . such a thing . . . and I would kill her, if she asked it of me. Just as I did our mother." 

"Oh, Janus . . ." The expression on Lucca's face was . . . pitying. Again. I gave her a cold look. 

"There's nothing we can do right now but wait. In five hours, I'll be going to the End of Time to find out the results of their little expedition. In the meanwhile, I'll be outside." 

I brushed past her and went to the door. A few words and an act of will took me to a barren headland in North Zenan. In front of me, there were hundreds of miles of ocean, and behind me, the land was uninhabited to the horizon. No one would see me here, whatever I did. 

The sea is . . . useful, sometimes. That day, it absorbed the brunt of my anger at my own helplessness until I fell to my knees, panting between clenched teeth, head bowed. 

_Serge, whoever and wherever you are, you had better get this right, or, when I catch up with you, there won't be enough left to fit in a teaspoon._

* * *

Fortunately for Serge, he lived up to his part of that bargain. 

When I entered the End of Time, Gaspar was awake, eyes darting rapidly from side to side as he stared into time. 

"That doesn't even make sense," he was muttering to himself. "Why would . . . Oh, I see. But there's still something missing." 

"I take it that the timelines have rejoined themselves," I said, and saw him jump as his eyes focussed again on his immediate surroundings. 

"Prince Janus! When did you get here? Ah, never mind. Yes, the timelines have been rejoined—or more accurately, all evidence that there ever was a split in the first place has vanished—but something is still not quite right. Several people seem to have undergone spontaneous personality changes, and—" 

I listened to the old man babble with somewhat less than half my attention while I focussed on following Gil's temporal thread forward from our parting at the Choras docks. The gangly adolescent that I remembered had grown into a well- built man by 1020. I could see the very instant in which the timelines had rejoined themselves: he was drinking in a bar, and then he staggered and his glass fell from his hand to shatter against the stone floor, splashing his trousers with red wine as he rubbed at his temples. After a moment, his head rose and whipped from side to side, taking in the interior of the bar as though he were trying to orient himself . . . or perhaps as though he was searching for someone or something . . . 

I banished the temporal viewing spell with a wave of my hand and walked over to the transportation circle, knowing that the quickest way to find out what had happened from Gil's point of view was to ask. 

It didn't occur to me until I was in mid-transit that the barrier around El Nido might still be there, and I gritted my teeth, waiting to be bounced back to the End of Time . . . but it didn't happen. I appeared in the shadow of a building in the white- walled, sun-washed city, and immediately downed a vial of ether and drew an illusion into place over my features. Even with that, I still got some odd looks as I walked boldly out onto the mid- level terrace, but I put those down to the fact I was somewhat overdressed for the climate and the locals didn't have spells to keep them comfortable despite the heat. 

" . . . pay for the glass," was the first phrase I caught as I entered the bar. "And with my most sincere apologies at that. I am not usually so clumsy, but—" 

"Gil," I said, stopping a few feet from where he was standing at the bar. 

His hand went slack again, and coins tinkled onto the counter, where they rolled in circles. "Janus! Maybe you can help me make sense of all this!" 

"First of all, get yourself under control and stop dropping things," I snapped. "It's disgraceful. What are you going to do if you're surprised in the middle of a fight? Drop your weapon?" That made the bartender, who was efficiently counting money from the countertop into her hand, smile. 

"It is a pleasure to see you again, too," Gil said—at some point over the past ten years, he appeared to have learned irony. 

I ruffled his hair—more awkward now that we were roughly of a height, but to my amusement, he tilted his head obligingly to let me do it. "Idiot," I said with something that might almost have been affection. "Gather up your change, and let's go find somewhere where you haven't made a spectacle of yourself—I'd prefer not to have a dozen people staring at us while we talk." 

"We should go either down to the docks or out to the shrines, then," Gil said. 

"The docks," I said decisively. 

Gil snorted. "I cannot believe that you are still so uncomfortable with the concept of a superior being." 

"I don't trust such creatures," I said seriously. "Nor should you." 

We strolled through the town and out to the end of the longest available dock, which had nothing moored to it. 

"A week ago, there would have been dozens of Porrean soldiers barring our way to this place," Gil observed. "And yet I would wager that none of the townsfolk now remember them. Or anything else that occurred. For myself, it seems that I have three different sets of memories—one corresponding to my life in each of the split worlds and one from the combined one, I expect." 

"Rather like what happens when one dares to alter one's own past," I observed. Then I braced myself and asked the question. "What happened in the Darkness Beyond Time?" 

Gil took a deep breath. "We found . . . Princess Schala. And the Lavos remnant. Although for some reason, your sister's hair was as blonde as Kid's. It took us some time to weaken the combined creature to the point where we could separate them. And then . . . Well. She talked for quite a while about the value of life. Said that the timelines would be rejoined, and that we would all lose our memories of what had happened . . . although it seems that she was not entirely accurate on that point. And then she said that she intended to find Serge again, but . . ." 

"'But' what?" I snapped, growing impatient as his hesitation stretched itself out for far longer than I considered necessary. 

"She said those words in Kid's style and accent, and I must admit to being uncertain what, if anything, that means." 

"A normal clone is effectively the same as a corpse," I said slowly. "A doll made of meat, nothing more, useful in magic because of the primitive Law of Similarity. But Kid was— is—a person. Schala must have given a part of her self—her soul, if you like—over to Kid to achieve that. In which case neither of them would have been complete as a separate person." 

"Which means . . . Schala _absorbed_ Kid? She would have hated that. Her independence was very important to her." 

"Vice-versa is also a possibility," I said to the ocean. "Would she have fought that?" 

Gil frowned. "I . . . don't know." 

"Hmph. One of us will have to ask her, then. Later. For the time being, she's safe, and . . . there's something else that you said in one of your letters that worries me." 

Judging from the way the skin of Gil's forehead flexed above his mask, he must have been trying to raise his non- existent eyebrows. "There is?" 

"The Arbiter," I said grimly. "Is that really the word Belthasar used to describe Serge's relationship with the Frozen Flame to you?" 

Gil nodded. "Not just him—Lynx and the computer system in Chronopolis also used the term. Is it significant?" 

"I hope not, but . . ." I paced the width of the dock, then back again, trying to get my thoughts in order. "The Frozen Flame had a long history in Zeal. From the time the islands rose into the sky until I was about five years old, it was enshrined in the royal palace. 'Arbiter' was the title given to its keeper, the person responsible for keeping it . . . pacified, I suppose you would say. The Arbiter's job involved spending part of each day doing the magical equivalent of singing lullabies to Lavos, although that name was never spoken and I doubt that most people knew of the connection—the Flame was revered in its own right, as the origin of all magic." 

Schala had taken me to the shrine with her a few times when I was a child, until I'd refused to go—I think I had been about four, then. But I hadn't been too young to sense the Flame reaching out to me, and its touch had felt vile. And then, when I was six, the Mammon Machine had come on-line, and the Flame's touch had become inescapable. That was what had driven me from the Palace whenever I was well enough and sent me to roam Kajar—and Enhasa, when I could find someone to take me through the skyways that my misunderstood magic hadn't been able to activate—but even on the surface, I had been able to feel the Flame. 

I could envision it even now: a misshapen lump of red stone with twisted spikes projecting from its top, lit from within by a slowly pulsing glow like a sluggish heartbeat . . . 

"Was Princess Schala an Arbiter?" Gil asked, breaking in on my thoughts. 

I nodded. 

"Was it usual to choose Arbiters from the royal family?" 

" . . . No. The only requirement was that the Arbiter be a lightning-element of a certain level of strength. Schala was chosen because our mother insisted on it. Our father also held the post, but only because all the other strong lightning-elements of his generation refused." Again, I paced the width of the dock and back. Lightning . . . I'd never thought about it before, but as far as I could recall, Schala's energies had never meshed very well with the Flame's, and it had always been so interested in me, suggesting that it would have preferred a shadow-user as Arbiter . . . Had the old laws mandated that lightning-user take the role because only that element, being the opposite of shadow, could possibly have avoided being seduced by the Flame? "It bothers me that the position passed to Serge," I added. "Is he even a lightning-user?" 

"A latent," Gil supplied. 

"A latent," I repeated. "Belthasar engineered the passage of the position to someone who could never fulfill its requirements . . ." Although, with the demise of Lavos, the Flame should have been quiescent . . . shouldn't it? "Did you ever actually encounter the Flame during this little adventure of yours?" 

Gil shuddered. "Yes." 

I waited. 

"It . . . _wanted_ . . . me," my ex-apprentice forced out slowly. "Offered me power . . . such horrible power . . ." A bead of sweat dripped down from his hairline to spread over the top edge of his mask. "It told me . . . I could have anything in the world . . . anything I wanted . . . wealth, women, fame . . ." He had gone pale under his tan, and the hand he swiped across his forehead was shaking. 

"Enough," I said. "I remember what the damned thing's like. Don't make yourself sick." 

So the Frozen Flame was . . . what? Part of Lavos, or not? Or had it been linked to the Time Devourer that Gil had mentioned? 

Regardless of what it was, I couldn't help but believe that this all centered around the Flame. If Belthasar's only purpose had been to rescue Schala, all he would have had to do was build a time machine small enough to fit inside the Mammon Machine's hall in the Ocean Palace, and snatch her out in the instant between my departure and her disappearance into the Darkness Beyond Time. There was nothing, nothing at all, that required him to split the universe in two or dump a research facility thousands of years back in time. 

Unless he'd really been trying to do something else entirely. 

What would Belthasar want with an Arbiterless Frozen Flame? What _good_ was the damned thing to anyone? The old man surely couldn't have gone to such elaborate lengths just to obtain a subject for his research . . . 

Part of Lavos . . . _or not . . ._

_How I long to return home,_ the Belthasar who had fallen into the future broken by Lavos had said in a message to Crono and the others. Would that sentiment have been shared by the current Belthasar, who had landed in a much friendlier future? If so . . . returning to Zeal only to see it fall into the ocean would never have satisfied such a man. He would have wanted to find some way to prevent it. 

The Fall had occurred when the spells supporting the floating islands had unraveled after the destruction of the Mammon Machine, which had, at the time, been powering them. Saving Zeal would require an immense magical power source that could be woven into the spells to take the Machine's place . . . a source like the Frozen Flame, if its power was truly innate and not tied to Lavos' continued survival. Of course, the Flame alone wasn't ideal—that was why the Mammon Machine had been created in the first place—but I wouldn't put it past Belthasar to construct something around it and then haul the entire mechanism into the past with him. 

My hands balled into fists, because the arguments I had made to Melchior right after the fall of Guardia Castle still held true: without the Fall, all but one of those who had destroyed Lavos might never have come into being, and even I would have had no reason to forge myself into a weapon against it. But Belthasar might not necessarily care about that, since even the best healing and physiological-support spells wouldn't have been enough to keep him alive for more than ten thousand years—two-and-a-half centuries was considered a good span for a fully trained Enlightened One with an affinity for one of the healing elements. Why would he care if Lavos erupted to confound his friends' dozens-of-times-great-grandchildren? Or perhaps he thought that ten millennia of uninterrupted magical research would _surely_ generate spells capable of dealing with the creature. 

Either way—if Lavos erupted or if Zeal fell—many people were going to die. Truth be told, I cared very little about that. The deaths of millions of strangers were irrelevant as far as I was concerned. But that Belthasar was risking letting that thing go unpunished was unacceptable. That he had also risked Schala's life over this was enough to make my blood boil with rage. 

I still carried chalk and charcoal with me, and the weathered boards of the dock were smooth enough for my purposes, although I would have to grind my writing materials down to ensure that the woodgrain didn't cause little gaps in the lines. And so I crouched down and began to trace the familiar circle. 

"Where are you going to go?" Gil asked. 

"The future," I replied. "I'd offer to take you along, but you've gotten a little too big for me to carry without magical assistance." 

"I think I can fix that," my ex-apprentice replied. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see him smirking. "Watch." 

Eyebrows raised, I sat back on my heels. Still smirking, Gil snapped his fingers three times, eyes narrowed in concentration. The air seemed to deform itself around him for a moment, and then a lavender-silver cat with green eyes was sitting at the end of the dock, watching me. 

It—he—stood up and turned around slowly, as though to give me a good view from all sides, but what I was watching was his feet. Normally, shapeshifting spells change the caster's form but leave his weight the same, so Gil should have been a very dense cat, but his weight wasn't bending or indenting the boards the way I would have expected. 

"You'll have to tell me where you learned that," I said at length. "For now, just stay out of the way. I don't need pawprints distorting the lines." 

That got me a wide-jawed yawn in return. Gil—or should I have been calling him "Alfador" in that form?—settled himself near the edge of the circle, curling up, and, to all appearances, dozing off. 

I shook my head and continued drawing. 

It took me around ten minutes to complete the circle— with the amount of practice I'd been getting, I probably could have drawn it in my sleep. 

"Wake up if you're coming," I said to Gil, and stepped into the center of the diagram. I was immediately hit in the chest by twelve pounds of cat, who clung, claws extended, to my armour until I could bring my left arm around to support him. Then I began the spell. 

Gaspar was asleep when we reached the End of Time—dreaming of Spekkio, perhaps. Rather than wake him, I invoked his time-viewing spell myself, and studied the future. El Nido . . . beginning in 2295 . . . Ah, there was Belthasar. I considered my options for a moment, then began to follow his twisting path through time. Several decades in the future . . . then back to the eleventh century to do several things that made no apparent sense in the rejoined timeline . . . and back to the future again . . . 

I emerged from the End of Time, still carrying Gil/Alfador, into the Sea of Dreams in the year 2403. It was late at night, and the stars glittered above my head with surprising clarity considering the pollution of light from the low building occupying most of the artificial island on which we had landed— not the original Chronopolis facility, but something thrown together after the Time Crash to help in excavating the temporally displaced ruins left behind. Even in my depleted state, I could hear the Black Wind moaning. Something was starting to go wrong here, although it was still short of the crisis point that would turn it into true disaster. 

The elixir I drank was very nearly the last one remaining in my pockets—I would have to set up another distillation facility soon. With my magic restored, I drew an illusion over my features and clothing . . . and, after a moment's thought, over my companion. There would be no reason for anyone from this era to be carrying a cat around a research laboratory in the middle of the night, and I was hoping not to draw the attention of anyone but Belthasar himself. 

I was already inside the outermost security perimeter, so I took a chance and walked straight in the front door and up to the reception desk, where a bored-looking young man, his eyes at half-mast, sat playing with some sort of technological toy. It wasn't until I was close enough to loom over him and block the overhead lights that he finally looked up. 

"Can I help you?" He didn't sound all that enthusiastic. 

"I'm looking for Belthasar Kellem," I said. Thankfully, I had remembered the old goat's last name. 

"Dr. Belthasar, huh? Well, if the guards let you through, I guess it's okay. Through the doors, turn left, and follow the hallway down to the door at the end." 

He returned his attention to his toy almost instantly, grinding his thumbs against the buttons on the bottom half, and I wondered if he was always this lax. Even for the sake of my disguise, I wasn't going to thank him—not that he appeared to care. 

The flooring on the other side of the double doors leading out of the lobby looked like tile, but had a slight give to it that caused it to absorb the sound of my booted footfalls. It was coloured differently for each of the three hallways—right, left, and straight ahead—and I turned to follow the disquieting red pathway to my left. My sensitive hearing picked up the whirr of some sort of mechanism as I walked over that surface, the colour of blood and Dreamstone, and I looked up to see the glitter of moving lenses: cameras, tracking me. Fortunately, a shadow- elemental illusion is a true bending of light, so the cameras would be seeing exactly the same thing as any people I ran into. 

While the hallway was well-lit, the rooms tucked behind the doors I passed were not. That made the windows in some of those doors into mirrors, and I was now and again vaguely surprised to catch a glimpse of my reflection, half- familiar human-seeming face above what my observations had suggested were respectable and businesslike garments for this era, left arm oddly held to cradle an invisible cat. It made the trip along the corridor seem timeless, something out of a dream . . . or a nightmare . . . and I half-expected space to stretch suddenly out to infinity in front of me, extending toward a door I would never reach. It was almost a shock to realize that I was nearing the end. 

I came to a stop some three steps away from the door and examined it, but there was no clue to what was beyond, no label or window. Even my subtler senses seemed unable to penetrate past the sliding slab of metal, which lacked a handle or catch. Fortunately, enough of Lucca's instruction in mechanics had taken for me to be able to identify the box protruding from the wall beside the door at elbow height as its operating mechanism. 

I wasn't entirely surprised when my touch made the door slide open. That Belthasar was expecting me . . . had been within the realm of possibility. I could sense the old Guru now, and something else as well, something that brushed against my mind like a lump of chilled and rancid grease, leaving a slimy trail behind. 

The Frozen Flame. 

Once I stepped through the doorway, I could see it, swathed in a containment field that held it suspended at roughly the level of the catwalk above my head. Between the entrance and that . . . thing, Belthasar stood with his back to me, looking up. 

"Prince Janus. I am pleased that you could join me." He spoke without turning around, but of course my aura would have alerted him to my presence the moment I had entered the room. 

I destroyed my illusion with a flick of my free hand— let any camera-watchers still following me around the facility chew on that!—and walked forward to stand beside the old man. "I'm afraid I can't say that I'm pleased to be here." 

Belthasar turned to face me. "So you did come to chastise me, then." 

I gave him a razor-sharp smile, noting with amusement that he was several inches shorter than I was. His love of elaborate headgear had made him seem taller during our single brief meeting while I had been playing Zeal's Prophet, but his head was currently bare—hats did not seem to be a common feature of men's fashions in this era. "What I do is going to depend on whether or not I correctly understand what you have done." 

"I rescued your sister," came the reply. 

"You also rescued . . . that." I used a motion of my head to indicate the Frozen Flame. "Indeed, it seems that you are a great deal more interested in it than in Schala, or you would still be in the eleventh century." 

I hadn't traced all the convolutions of Belthasar's plan—I knew that. And so I was still hoping that I was wrong about his purposes. That there was something I still hadn't seen, or was misunderstanding. 

However, those hopes were quickly dashed. 

"Is there a reason why I shouldn't have rescued it? With Lavos gone, it's an energy source, nothing more." 

"Can't you feel it, you fool?" I snapped. "The Frozen Flame is foul—corrupt. Even our ancestors knew that, or they would never have created the position of Arbiter in the first place! It will sabotage any purpose you try to put it to for its own ends. The only safe thing to do is destroy it, since you've already proven that there is always some idiot out there who won't be willing to just let it lie in peace if we throw it away." 

Belthasar gave me the sort of condescending smile he might have offered a small child—I'd always hated that smile. "We can't give up on progress just because of superstition about how something _feels_ —that's one thing I've learned since arriving in the future. Even the most dangerous artefact can be beneficial if it's properly contained." 

"The Flame is a creation of Lavos. You don't understand everything it's capable of, and chances are that you never will," I argued. "That . . . thing . . . didn't think like a human being, and that which it left behind will always be a danger." 

The Guru actually laughed. "So you're claiming that modern humanity—and magic—are dangerous?" 

"Yes," I said flatly, looking him straight in the eye. At least that made him drop the damned smile. "Tell me, Belthasar, if I, as your king by right of birth and power, were to order you to destroy the Frozen Flame, would you do it? Or do you acknowledge any restraint on your behaviour at all anymore?" 

"Your father once asked me something very similar," Belthasar said, all amusement gone. "And I'll give you the same answer as I gave him: I don't acknowledge authority that acts out of ignorance." 

"And who gets to decide what constitutes ignorance?" I asked pointedly. " _You?_ You know nothing of Lavos except at second-hand. You never faced down what was inside that shell. _You_ are the one making judgements out of ignorance, Belthasar." 

A sigh. "Again, exactly like your father: stubborn. That was why I had to clear him out of the way." 

I froze. "You _WHAT?!_ " 

"He was barring the way to Zeal's future. Do you think I _enjoyed_ it—sending that specially-engineered assassin-construct after him? I spent the two weeks right after his funeral drunk off my arse because I almost couldn't live with myself." 

"You murdered your king for the sake of your own ambitions," I said slowly, spiralling downward into a cold, clear rage whose like I hadn't experienced in many years. "And then you convinced yourself that it was for the best. Tell me, Belthasar, can you think of any reason why I should leave you alive?" 

The old man flinched, but he said, "I thought I was doing the right thing. Granted, there was some information that I lacked, but I still—" 

"Spare me your self-righteous drivel," I snarled. "You're fortunate that I'm more worried about the Frozen Flame than about your foolish machinations right now, or you would already _be_ dead. However, before I kill you, I need to make sure that no one else is able to pick up where you left off. I've sacrificed my life to destroy Lavos, and I am damned if you or anyone else is going to let the last fragment of that creature free to wreak more havoc!" 

"You're saying that you will . . . destroy the Flame? But you can't! There is still so much we could learn from it!" 

"Twisted knowledge," I said harshly. "We're better off without it." 

"I won't allow you to do this." 

I barked a laugh. "And how do you think you're going to stop me?" 

Belthasar must have given some signal at that moment, because I heard doors open behind us, and the sounds of several people breathing in a manner that indicated exertion, although the flooring muted their footfalls just as it had done with mine. 

"Step away from him, doctor!" 

I didn't bother to turn. Instead, I prodded Gil awake. 

"Try to keep yourself from getting shot," I said, and he gave me a cool green look before jumping down from my arms. 

"Turn around slowly!" 

A whispered phrase teleported me to the catwalk above the Frozen Flame and its forcefield—from up here, I could see where the energies to create that last were coming from. They'd spaced three projectors equally around the walls. A circular arrangement would have been more stable, of course, but technology always seemed to depend on point-radiation rather than the equally dispersed energy often used in magical operations. This was to my advantage in this case, because it meant that all I had to do to dissipate the forcefield and get at the Frozen Flame was destroy one of the projectors . . . before one of the dozen-or-so armed men staring at Gil got the bright idea of looking up, or Belthasar collected himself enough to tell them where I was. 

I pointed and spoke a phrase, and lightning struck, leaving one of the projectors dripping down the wall in the form of molten metal while other, more delicate elements of its innards evaporated into foul smoke. That had drawn everyone's attention up to me, and I met Belthasar's horrified stare with a calm, confident gaze. I might not succeed in leaving this place in one piece, but neither would the Frozen Flame, and that was all I really cared about at this point. 

"I would get out of here if I were you," I warned the security guards—soldiers?—who were clustered around Belthasar. The forcefield was flickering. It wouldn't be long before it collapsed. "Things are about to get . . . messy." 

"You're insane!" Belthasar shouted. 

I smiled thinly. "It's been my experience that others judge the sanity of men who put their goals before their lives on the basis of whether or not they're on the same side. I care very little what you think of me, Belthasar. Traitor." 

The forcefield fizzled out. 

The Frozen Flame hung, for an instant, suspended in midair on its own. 

Then it flared with light, and reality flickered and went out. 

"Your Majesty!" 

I blinked. Raised a hand to rub at my forehead, then stopped, noting the heavy sleeve encumbering my arm. Noting the hand, gloveless, with ordinary, flat nails at the tip of each finger, and skin which was merely human-pale. My tongue, running over my teeth, found no fangs. I touched my ears, traced my hairline . . . both wrong. Or, from a certain point of view, _right_. 

"What is going on here?" I snapped, and was relieved to discover that my voice, at least, remained my own. 

The Nu blinked at me. "Are you all right, your Majesty? You're going to be late for court." 

Ignoring it, I looked around. That this was Zeal, I had no doubt. This was not a large room, but the walls were of white marble and gold, and the sumptuous furnishings were of a familiar style and touched with magic—the normal spells for cleaning and self-repair. A study, with papers arranged in neat piles on the desk beside which I stood. It could have been my father's study, a room that I vaguely remembered from earliest childhood, but I had a feeling that it wasn't. The soft susurration of the Sun Stone's projected power filled the air, but I couldn't hear the Black Wind—not even the faint hint of it that existed everywhere inside time and seemed to indicate that the universe was ever-so-slowly dying . . . 

Everything was both right and wrong. My body, the weight of Zealish court robes, which I'd never worn as an adult, hanging from my shoulders, the elaborate style into which my hair had been worked, with ornaments braided into it . . . 

"Tell me," I asked the Nu slowly, "who do you think I am?" 

"You are King Janus Zeal," the creature replied promptly. 

"And the year?" 

"The twenty-fourth of your reign, sire. Are you certain you're all right?" 

My mind flew through the possibilities. Time altered again, bringing to the fore a possibility that would otherwise never have been, or— 

"Janus!" 

My attention darted to the doorway. 

"Schala," I said hoarsely. 

She was pregnant—not heavily, not yet, but enough so that she kept a hand cupped protectively over her stomach as she walked toward me. She too wore court robes. I longed to bury my face in that familiar blue hair, but until I understood what was going on— 

Her arms slid around my waist, and my eyes widened slightly as she leaned up and kissed me on the mouth . . . then narrowed again. 

"Are you trying to get yourself deposed?" she asked, eyes twinkling with laughter. "Really, holding up court again . . . you need to do something about these bad habits of yours, brother. Beloved. I want our son to have a nice secure throne to sit on, if it's all the same to you." 

"Our . . . son," I said slowly. 

The laughter vanished from her eyes. "Something really is wrong, isn't it? I know you can't have forgotten that . . . not when you were so happy when you found out . . ." 

I forced myself to smile and raised a hand to cup her face—not for the world would I have hurt even an image of her, not for any cause less than saving her. "It's all right, Schala. Go on ahead, and tell them that I'll be there momentarily." 

"Well . . . all right, if you're sure . . ." She gave me several lingering glances over her shoulder on her way to the door. I forced myself to hold that smile until she disappeared . . . and even when I let it fade, I found myself staring after her. 

Schala. My _wife_ , not just my sister. I couldn't deny the susurration of warmth that moved through me at the thought. I wanted this, wanted it so badly that it shook me to the core and left me trembling, gripping the back of the desk chair with a firmness that turned my knuckles white. 

A modern human would have been revolted by the idea, I suppose, but . . . incest within the same generation wasn't forbidden in Zeal—there had even been a time, long before I was born, when brother had routinely married sister on the floating islands, as part of the attempt to breed for stronger magic. But Schala had to consider me as much her son as her brother, given the nature of our childhood relationship . . . she would think this vile, I was certain. 

I laughed harshly, feeling the sound burn inside my chest and throat. Schala and I together, reigning over an unfallen Zeal . . . everything undone, and no blood on my soft, uncalloused, _human_ hands . . . 

"Did you really think that this would tempt me?" I asked the air, ignoring the Nu's pitying stare. "This . . . insane wish-fulfillment dream? None of this has ever been about making myself happy— _none_ of it. Did you think that I would throw everything away just to live a lie of _your_ making?" 

Everything froze, then wavered. Evaporated. The weight of the court robes was replaced by that of my armour, and the Black Wind once more filled my ears with its chilling murmur, but the room in the research facility didn't return along with that sliver of normality. Instead, I hung in empty darkness, alone with the Frozen Flame. 

_It could be real._ Not truly words or even sound, but somehow the meaning communicated itself. _All you need to do is reach out, touch, and_ take _. It is what you were always meant for, Son of Darkness._

"You're asking me to become your new Arbiter?" Was it really that stupid? 

_You bear a combination of genes particularly suited to that role. Come to me, and we will reshape the world according to your desires!_

"You aren't part of Lavos, not really." I said it slowly, trying to buy myself time to think. "You're . . . Lavos' Dream. I suppose your . . . progenitor . . . landed on a piece of Dreamstone when it fell from the sky all those years ago." It explained a great deal—everything from the colour of the Frozen Flame to its ability to act independently. It also, unfortunately, made it even more important that I destroy the damned thing: there was no way to negotiate with a Dream. The Flame, by its nature, would _have_ to follow Lavos' will, even if it no longer made sense for it to do so. 

_I . . . Yes, I suppose that is what I am. His Dream._ Had the Frozen Flame been a biological creature, I would have said it was tasting the words. 

"You mean you didn't even know?" Dreamstone . . . how did one destroy Dreamstone? It wasn't easily worked, I knew that—I'd watched Melchior carve the substrate for Schala's pendant. It had taken him most of a week, and he'd needed both chemicals and enchanted tools to shape the wafer of red stone he had chosen. The incident with the Masamune I discounted: I was certain that the sword had broken because of the effect of Cyrus' startlement and doubt on the dream-creatures it contained, rather than because of any normal physical weakness. 

Or . . . did I truly need to attack the Flame itself? It was no more than a vessel that I needed to empty, really. Destroying it would be sufficient, but not _necessary_. 

So how does one attack a Dream? I extended my senses, and bit back a curse as I felt several layers of barrier between me and it. I needed to get it to drop those before I could catalogue its vulnerabilities and attack them. 

And there was only one way that I could think of to do that. Oh, I could _try_ to batter it into submission, but that might take hours, with no guarantee of success. I needed something certain, because there would be no second chances here. If I failed, Belthasar would move heaven and earth to see to it that I never reached the Flame again. 

"All I need to do is touch you, correct?" 

_. . . Yes. Yes!_

"Very well. But bring the room back, first. I want to be sure that I'm dealing with reality, and not one of your illusions." 

The darkness thinned and vanished, and I was back on the catwalk, with a dozen guns trained on me. I ignored them and pushed off the surface on which I stood. 

I flew up over the railing, toward the Frozen Flame. One of the guards swore, and I glanced down to see him let go of his weapon, leaving it hanging in midair. Apparently the Flame didn't want them to harm me, which would make things a bit easier. 

At least I wouldn't have to worry about being shot in the back while doing something so risky it bordered on madness. 

I was now floating in midair with the Flame within arm's reach, the tips of the wavy points that stuck out of its top level with my eyes. Slowly, I reached out and gripped two of those points near their bases. 

Nothing happened. Presumably, my gloves, heavily warded as they were, weren't letting the Flame's influence through. I examined it again, taking my time, but there was still one final, extremely powerful layer of protections separating us. 

It appeared there was no other way, after all. 

I tugged gently on the Flame, and it obligingly came loose from its place in midair. I ignored the sudden rising howl of the Black Wind and tilted the bottom of the red stone in toward me until its surface pressed against the bare skin of my forearm near the left elbow. It felt cold and smooth . . . why had I expected it to be warm? Cold and smooth and— 

An unpleasant tingling sensation ran through my body, and I could feel something pressing against me inside— against my mind, or perhaps my soul. I did my best to pull back from it, to do the equivalent of allowing it into an empty shell, an evacuated town . . . impossible to extend my perceptions properly while doing that, so I breathed the spell I had learned from Ascelus' grimoire all those years ago, and let it reveal to me the energies now connecting me with the Flame. The barriers were all down. 

I waited a little longer, until the energy stream began to thin, meaning that the bulk of the Flame was caught up in this attempted joining. And I could indeed feel it encroaching on the edges of my _self_ , its thoughts infecting my mind, its energies beginning to spread through my body . . . Time to act, before matters got any worse. 

I flung the empty Dreamstone away from me and rapidly gabbled off a spell. Using pure shadow, I tore at the essence of the Flame, ruthlessly widening my scope to include parts of my own mind and body where we had begun to merge. I was vaguely aware that I was hanging in the middle of a coruscating mass of light and darkness, with multicolored lightning crackling around me as I flung away shredded bits of Lavos' Dream to die hostless. 

I tasted blood as the damaged Flame pleaded with me, promising me the world on a silver platter and other things which I suspected it wasn't capable of. Its voice mingled with that of the Black Wind as I ripped its core out of me and held it between my hands. 

"All I ever wanted," I told it, "was a world free of you and your master. And that you cannot give me, except by dying." 

Crooking my fingers, I tore apart the heart of Lavos' Dream. It dissipated with one last howl and a whisper of vengeance. 

The light show around me faded, and, exhausted, I dropped to the floor. Swaying on my feet, I regarded Belthasar and his guards, all of whom had their guns trained on me again. 

I felt a warm tickling sensation at the back of my throat, and I coughed . . . and, having done so, seemed unable to stop. I ended up on my hands and knees, spitting blood, with the understanding that I must have damaged something important while I'd been tearing at the Frozen Flame floating hazily at the top of my mind. 

The Black Wind was still loud in my ears, as loud as it had been on the long-ago night of Caeron's death, but I refused to let it intimidate me. I was almost finished, but there was one more thing that I still needed to do. 

" _Mraa—_ Janus!" Gil had wormed his way between the guards' ankles and resumed his human form over the course of three running steps. "Are you all right?" 

"Help me up," I said, and spat more blood. 

"What? You are in no condition—" 

" _Help me up,_ " I repeated, and this time, my ex-apprentice listened, crouching down so that I could slide an arm over his shoulders. On my feet, leaning on him, I fumbled an elixir out of my pocket and drank. It would stop the blood loss, but not truly revive me—I was past the point where anything except rest would do that. Assuming that I hadn't done myself irreparable damage, which was certainly possible—even likely. 

But I forced myself not to linger on that possibility. Instead, I met Belthasar's eyes, ignoring the guards. At least the old buzzard looked a bit ashamed of himself now, seeing me so battered and bloody. I could still have killed him, but I didn't really think it was worth the effort. He might be more aggressive than I had originally thought, but I still didn't believe that Belthasar was the sort of man who would seek revenge, and the destruction of the Frozen Flame should have drawn his fangs . . . or at least, I hoped it had. 

"Your time machine," I rasped to the former Guru. "I know you have one. Take us to it." 

One of the guards hefted his gun. "Doctor . . ." 

Belthasar raised his hand, his eyes never leaving mine. "No, it's alright—I don't think they're going to hurt me now." 

"But . . . Doctor . . . that man with the mask was a _cat_ , and—" 

My laugh came out as a peculiar, harsh noise. "Didn't you ever tell them what you were, or was it more amusing to leave them thrashing around in the dark?" 

"Not amusing. Never that. But I . . . didn't want to talk about Zeal. Or any of the rest of it." 

I smiled thinly. "And no one particularly wants to explain himself to his tools, is that it? Especially not tools that he intends to discard." 

"Prince Janus—" 

"And now you're going to say that you never thought of them as any such thing, because admitting to yourself that you were using them would tarnish your heroic self-image. At least I've never claimed to be anything but a villain. You disgust me." 

And at last the old man lowered his gaze. 

"What is going on here?" 

Someone was pushing through the knot of guards. A civilian, but he appeared to be what passed for well-dressed in this era . . . not a janitor, in any case. 

"Representative Perrian—" Belthasar began, but the newcomer ignored him. 

"What do you mean, 'tools he intended to discard'?" he asked, eyes boring into me. 

I sighed. "Belthasar came here meaning to invalidate the last fourteen-and-a-half thousand years of human history. Or so I believe." 

" _What?_ " 

"He is of Zeal, and he wants to go home," I explained wearily. A tickle at my throat made me cough again, and when I lowered my hand, I was disturbed to see flecks of blood on my glove. Apparently, the elixir hadn't stopped all the bleeding. "I don't think that anyone or anything that came into existence after Zeal fell is . . . real to him. In his mind, you don't matter—you're only illusions of an invalid future." 

"How dare you—" 

"How dare _you_?!" I snapped at Belthasar. "The price of reviving it is too high, Belthasar! But of course, you don't remember the future that Lavos destroyed, the one that killed you in that version of history . . . or do you? Endless plains of dust and ash inhabited only by robots and a decreasing number of creatures that lived by cannibalizing each other . . . the ragged remnants of humanity hiding in the dark, among the ruins of what their ancestors had built . . . Do you ever see that land, in your nightmares? _That_ is what will happen, if you erase the Fall from history." _I will not allow you to take away my revenge, or risk Schala again!_

"It isn't inevitable—" 

" _The price is too high,_ " I repeated. "I won't allow you to risk reviving Lavos along with Zeal. In fact, if I ever catch you interfering in the past again, I'll hunt you down and kill you. If you want to live, stay in this time and forget you ever knew of any way to leave." I coughed again. More blood. "Now, take me to your damned time machine before I kill you anyway and find it for myself!" 

I was bluffing, truth be told. I had lost so much strength that I wasn't certain that I would have been able to kill him, not when I could barely stand. 

"Belthasar, did you truly keep such technology from us?" the Representative asked before the old man could say anything. 

"I met him—three times!—in the year 1020AD," Gil said. "He could not have gotten there without some means of time travel. Now, if we could please stop wasting time?" 

"We should treat your friend first—" 

"No," I said flatly, cutting Perrian off. I didn't trust the future or its inhabitants—there was too much here that I didn't understand. And I had some uneasy memories of how Lucca behaved whenever she came across a new or unusual machine: she always wanted to take it apart and see how it worked. Given that my physiology, according to Melchior, was unique, I wouldn't have put it past someone here to try the same with me, and I wasn't nearly so easy to put back together again as a robot was. Since I'd already gotten Belthasar's little toy away from him, it might not matter all that much, but . . . "The time machine." 

"Very well. It's this way." 

Belthasar led us back out into the red-floored hallway and through one of the doors lining its sides. With the lights on, it proved to contain tables with sinks built into their tops, and a sparse selection of other mechanisms that I didn't recognize. Belthasar crouched for a moment, half-hidden behind some shadowy shape in the back corner. 

"Here," he said at last, then added, "It only seats one." 

Gil helped me over to that part of the room, and I saw that Belthasar had done nothing but remove a single square section from the floor. A few feet below the hole was the single- seat cockpit he had promised. I couldn't see the rest of the vehicle. Burying it under the facility without hollowing out a cavern or the like around it was definitely a minimalist approach, and I wondered if dirt or debris had gotten into its workings. But the dimly-lit cockpit instruments, so much like the old Epoch's, suggested that it was functional. 

With Gil's help, I crouched down on the floor, then swung over the edge into the cockpit seat and flipped three switches in the sequence that would have started up the original Epoch. A display built into the dashboard sprung to life, and I ran my fingers over the buttons below it before punching a select few. 

"You aren't going to fit that way," I told Gil, glancing up. 

My ex-apprentice nodded. "Are you certain we can trust this . . . ?" 

I coughed again. "Preparing a trap so elaborate would require more detailed predictive abilities than I suspect Belthasar has. Why else would he have needed to lock me out of the timeline for ten years?" 

"That was at Princess Schala's request," the old man said. 

Schala's . . . request? Why . . . ? 

"Apparently my sister and I need to have a talk," I said, leaning back wearily in the upholstered seat. "Shall I tell her you said hello?" 

Belthasar froze in place for an instant. "Am I to understand that you came here without speaking to her first?" 

"He seemed to think that stopping you from doing whatever you had in mind was more important than their reunion." I couldn't recall ever hearing Gil speak so sharply before. 

"But I thought—" 

"You think too much," I interrupted. "And along the wrong lines. Gil, you have half a minute before I strand you here." 

My ex-apprentice rolled his eyes. Then he snapped his fingers three times, and a lavender-silver cat hopped down into my lap. 

As he settled himself, I reached over him, turned a dial, and then pressed a button. 

The future disappeared into dull, roaring darkness. Hopefully, I would never have to go back there again except in the normal way: by living the time in between. 

We emerged from the darkness of time travel into the brilliant sunlight of an El Nido day, and I swore tiredly and shielded my eyes. Coughed again. There was more blood this time, and Gil hooked his claws into my glove and held my hand down where he could stare at it. 

"It should heal, given time and rest," I told him—lied to him, really, since I had no real idea how severe the damage was. And I could still hear the echoing thunder of the Black Wind. 

Gil tapped my face emphatically, claws extended just a bit out of their sheaths, and pointed due west with one foreleg. Green eyes bored into mine. 

"Are you trying to order me around?" I asked, as much amused as irritated. " . . . Very well. You know this area better than I do." 

I swung the stick that occupied a central position among the controls, bringing the little craft around, and called for what should have been a moderate level of speed. 

The acceleration nearly made me black out. Half of El Nido shot by before I could ease off on the controls. Gil, however, was still pointing westward, even though we were past Termina and the main island. I shrugged. Well, I had chosen to take his word for things . . . 

A few moments later, one of the oddest settlements I had ever seen, a thing of wooden towers built on stilts in shallow water in the lee of a group of squat, presumably extinct, volcanoes, came into view, and Gil almost fell out of the little time machine pointing at it. 

I didn't even have the energy to wonder what was in this peculiar village. Instead, I sent our craft skimming down toward it. My vision went double for an instant as it belly- flopped into the water near one end of town. I half expected to feel the ocean encroaching coldly around my ankles, but it appeared that the time machine was water-tight. 

Gil leapt from our craft to the dock, spoiling the graceful movement by transforming himself in midair and nearly landing on his face. Once he had himself sorted out, he held out a hand to me. I ignored it and vaulted out myself, barely making it up onto the wooden dock. 

Gil pulled me to my feet, then grabbed my arm and hoisted it over his shoulders. "Idiot. We need to get you to bed." 

"I can walk," I snapped, then coughed. To my disquiet, I couldn't seem to stop, and there was blood trickling down my chin again . . . Gil pulled me forward, and I didn't have the strength to struggle. Just staying upright was starting to take all I had. Everything around me was wavering, like a summer heat haze . . . 

Somebody was talking, but the words came to me in disconnected scraps. 

". . . patient for you." 

"Never seen . . . is this dude?" 

". . . tell you that himself . . . internal injuries . . . coughing blood for a good hour . . . elixir helped a bit, but . . . damned stubborn fool." 

". . . _hour?!_ . . . constitution of a rockroach! How . . ." 

". . . to himself, mostly . . . bed . . ." 

". . . conscious? . . . eyes are . . ." 

"Janus!" 

My name. I managed to focus for a moment—I was standing beside a bed, my arm still slung over Gil's shoulders. There were two other people there as well, a demi-human woman and a scruffy-looking blonde man. 

"Stop trying to hold on—you are safe here." 

"Doesn't matter," I whispered. "Schala . . . it's all finished. Don't need to . . . fight anymore . . ." 

Then reality slid sideways. I don't remember hitting the bed, or the floor, but I suppose I must have done one or the other as I was borne away on the Black Wind's howl. 

* * *

Waking up came as a bit of a shock. I hadn't really expected it to happen—hadn't, for once, been fighting with every ounce of my strength and will to retain my life. Why should I? The last vestige of Lavos had been erased from the world, and my sister was finally safe. 

I sat up and looked around, feeling light-headed and empty of purpose. The bed underneath me was narrow, set up against the wall of a wide-windowed room in a wooden building—one of those peculiar towers on stilts? Sparse furniture, a profusion of brightly-coloured hangings and rugs, and a single doorway completed the picture. I frowned as I realized I'd been stripped to the skin, but whoever had done it hadn't made any effort to hide my clothes: my armour was draped across the bench on my left, and most of the rest was hanging from a sort of clothesline stretched across a corner near the door. And the Black Wind had once more died back to a background murmur. 

I wasn't coughing, so I threw back the single thin blanket covering me and slid my legs over the edge of the bed. There was no pain, and so I stood and made some cautious bending-and-stretching tests of my condition. Only when I was satisfied that I had recovered from the injuries I had taken in the future did I reach for my clothes. 

Dressed, I felt a bit more like myself. I was just pulling my gloves on when I heard a curtain being pushed aside, and two people entered the room beyond the doorway. 

" . . . really gnarly, dude. I understand now why you don't want to tell me the rest of the story." 

"I doubt you would find the rest any more unbelievable than the portion I have already told you, but it is significantly longer and more complex, and I have even less to back it up." 

" _More_ complex? Oh, man . . . " 

Having gotten the last bits of clothing in place, I stepped into the doorway. The room beyond it was fairly similar to the one in which I'd woken up, albeit with more furniture and miscellaneous clutter. Gil was leaning against the far wall. He'd apparently been talking to the scruffy blonde man whom I vaguely remembered from our arrival, now seated on a stool in the far corner. Both of them were looking at me. 

"How long have I been out?" I asked Gil, ignoring the other man. 

"About a day and a half," my ex-apprentice replied. 

"And you should still be in bed, dude," the blonde added. 

I skewered him with a cold look, and he shivered visibly. 

"Brr . . . okay, whatever. It isn't like I really did anything for you anyway—you healed up all on your own. Damndest thing I ever saw . . . not that I've ever treated a mage before. There aren't many of you dudes outside Guardia these days." 

I returned my attention to Gil. "Have you done anything with Belthasar's . . . toy?" I wasn't about to admit that the damned thing was a time machine, not in front of a stranger. 

"I moored it properly to the end of the dock. Otherwise, I left it alone—I was uncertain of what you would want done with it." 

I shrugged. "I'll give it to Lucca to take apart, I suppose. Or drop it into an active volcano if she doesn't want it. It isn't as though I have any real use for it—I just wanted to get it away from Belthasar." 

"I wondered about that. Janus . . ." 

I waited, and a few moments later, Gil capitulated. 

"I was uncertain of whether it was a good idea to tell you this, but . . . I found her. One of her. Although whether she is Kid or Schala or both, I cannot say—I did not approach her." 

"And is she well?" I demanded. 

"She seemed to be." A hesitation. "You are not going to ask where she is?" 

I looked away. "I hadn't intended . . . Now that she's safe, Schala is better off without me." 

Gil made a disgusted noise, somewhere in his throat. "There are times when you can be extraordinarily stupid as well as selfish, did you know that? _She_ may want to see _you_ —does that not matter to you? I never thought that the scenario Lucca suggested all those years ago—the one with the two of you chasing after each other for the rest of your lives— was all that likely, but now I begin to wonder. Would you deny her the solace of seeing you safe and well, after all the hell you have both been through? Or is it that you feel unable to face her?" 

My fingers traced the top edge of the crescent-shaped ornament hanging by my side. 

_Schala . . ._

How many years separated me now from the boy she had known? Nearly forty? It had been twenty since our last brief meeting in the crumbling Ocean Palace. She had recognized me then, and not flinched back, and I certainly hadn't done anything _worse_ between now and then than I had done during my time in the sixth century . . . 

No, what haunted me was not the darkness of my deeds or the way she might react to them, if she had been able to watch me from the Darkness Beyond Time. What disturbed me was how _I_ might react to _her_ , now that the Frozen Flame had laid bare the hidden desires that I had never admitted to before. Desires which I knew she didn't— _couldn't_ —share. I didn't even dare tell her what a tangled mess my feelings for her were. 

Could I place her hand in that of another man, and never let her know of the envy that would burn in me as I did so? If she ever found out, I knew it would break her heart, and she had experienced enough pain to last any normal person lifetimes. But if she thought I was avoiding her . . . was that truly any better? 

_I'm behaving like an adolescent with his first crush,_ I thought with disgust. Although in a sense she was . . . well . . . but in any case, I wasn't fourteen. Somehow . . . I would just have to force things to work. Surely I had enough self-control for a few minutes of acting, even with such an audience. But . . . 

"If she wanted to see me, why would she ask Belthasar to bar me from time for the period of her rescue?" 

Gil shrugged. "Perhaps she is as frightened of facing you as you are of facing her. You would have to ask her." 

Clearly, he wasn't going to give up. With a sigh, I capitulated. "Very well," I said. "Where is she?" 

* * *

Opassa beach edged a peninsula protruding from the southwest corner of El Nido's main island. The only access to it from ground level—at least, if one wanted to remain dry-shod— was via a narrow passage between two cliffs. It was a quiet, isolated place, one that I might actually have liked if it hadn't been for the shadow looming over me. 

_This is ridiculous,_ I told myself as I stood atop one of those cliffs, looking down. _A few minutes of conversation with my sister—if she_ is _my sister—should not be more terrifying than fighting Lavos!_ And yet I couldn't seem to make myself jump off and float down to the sand, or call out to the slender figure in the white dress who stood with her back to me, facing the ocean. 

Gil was giving me a disgusted look. I glared back. _All right, all right, I'm going!_ And I stepped off the edge of the cliff. 

The sound of my boots striking the sand must have been covered by that of the wind and waves, because the young woman didn't turn away from her contemplation of the water . . . although if she was Schala, she should have been able to sense my aura at this distance. Or perhaps she did, but thought it was a hallucination. More than once, during those empty years I'd spent scouring the post-Fall world, I'd thought _I_ sensed _her_ , only to have the illusion evaporate when I went to investigate it. 

Slowly, step by step, I forced myself toward her. I was within ten feet of her when she squared her shoulders and told the ocean, "I should stop wasting time here. Staring at the water isn't going to get me any closer to Serge. I need to go to Arni. But . . . will he want me like this? Even if he remembers, it was Kid that he . . . loved . . . and I'm not really . . ." 

"If he doesn't want you, he's a fool," I said hoarsely. 

She spun around, utter shock on her face. It was all I could do not to wince. 

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean . . . I'll go." 

"Don't you _dare_ ," she breathed. Suddenly, there was a light in her eyes, and she launched herself forward, breaking into a broad smile that I couldn't remember ever having seen on Schala's face before . . . but then, what had my sister had to smile about on the floating islands? She skidded to a stop in front of me and almost overbalanced. I put a hand out to steady her, but she ducked under it and wrapped both her arms around my waist instead. "Janus . . . oh, Janus. It is _so_ good to see you again." 

"Schala . . ." All I could manage to say was her name. 

She looked up at me, smile fading. How odd that I was so much taller than her . . . I didn't remember that from my stint as the Prophet, but we had never stood so close together during that . . . "This isn't easy for you, is it? I'm sorry. Sorry I was so weak. You should never have had to face the darkness alone . . . I should have been beside you all this time, but I . . . I couldn't . . ." 

Slowly, my arms slid around her shoulders and gathered her against me. "And I should have rescued you from Lavos," I said tightly. "Leaving you waiting in the Darkness Beyond Time for thirteen thousand years was inexcusable. I cannot believe what a fool I was." 

She shook her head, tears glittering in her eyes. "I was the one who kept you from finding me. I . . . I didn't want you to see. What I'd become. What that _thing_ had turned me into. You'd already fought Lavos so long and so hard, and I—I just gave in . . . I thought you would hate me for that. And you'd already been hurt enough." 

"I could never hate you," I murmured. "Never. If anything, I always thought it would be the other way around, that _you_ would hate _me_ for what I turned myself into. You were Lavos' victim, but I've done horrible things by my own choice. I lived twenty years in a hell of my own making just to have one chance at my enemy's life, and even I don't know how many people I destroyed in the process." 

Her smile wavered back into being. "We make a fine pair, don't we? Each believing that our sin is worse than the other could possibly be capable of . . . It must be genetic." 

"Perhaps." 

That got me something that was almost a giggle. "You know . . . You probably don't remember, but Father used to say things like that in that same absolutely deadpan way, but with his eyes sparkling . . . You're a lot like him—or at least, like he would have been if he'd been a shadow-element." A hesitation. "Janus, did you ever . . . Do you have a girlfriend?" 

I shook my head. "No woman has ever evinced the least bit of interest in me. Perhaps it's the ears." Better to joke than to burden her with more heavy truths about the isolation I had chosen. 

"Then they're all fools. I like your ears. They're elegant." 

"And what's this that I hear about you and some boy named Serge?" I demanded, changing the subject. 

Schala actually blushed. "Oh, Serge. I . . . um . . . we . . . Stop laughing!" 

"Laughing?" I had been perfectly straight-faced throughout, I thought. 

"On the inside," she clarified. "Don't think I can't tell! I'm still older than you, you know!" 

"Actually, I'm not so certain of that," I said thoughtfully. "The time travel makes it difficult to tally things up, and I'm not certain how much time you really _lived_ while you were in the Darkness . . . I'm forty-five, I think, give or take a few months." 

A soft sigh. "Time travel is unfair . . . I think I spent about twenty years, subjectively, in the Darkness, which would make me only thirty-six . . . although this body isn't quite eighteen yet. Either way, I guess that means you win." She shook her head. "Forty-five . . . You've been alone for longer than I've lived. For all that we're brother and sister, we really haven't known each other for more than a brief splinter of time, have we?" A long pause. "Janus . . . will you come to Arni with me?" 

"For a little while," I replied. "If you want me to. I'd like to meet your Serge." 

"And make sure he's worthy of me, I suppose. Well, maybe I'll let you act all overprotective. Just this once. Although . . . does it bother you that I want to give it all up— magic, lineage, even some of my memories—and become a fisherman's wife?" 

"If anyone deserves happiness, it's you, and if that will make you happy . . ." 

"I would have said the same about you." Another pause. "What . . . are you going to do now? After Arni, I mean. I'd ask you to stay there with me, but somehow I don't think it's the right place for you." 

"I don't know," I admitted. "Perhaps I'll return to my magical research . . . that seems to be what I end up doing whenever there's nothing more urgent in front of me." Although I honestly didn't know what good that research was going to do anyone in the end . . . my visit to the future had made it clear that magic's renaissance in Guardia was going to be brief. A few decades, perhaps a century or two . . . and then I would be alone again, the last true mage anywhere in the world until Belthasar popped out of time a millennium or so later. 

"You look like you feel as adrift as I do," she said, leaning in to rest her forehead against my shoulder. 

"I suppose I do, in a way. For most of my life, I've been driving myself to find a way to destroy Lavos and save you, and now . . . Having no purpose feels strange to me. Uncomfortable." _Wrong._ "I suppose I'll eventually become accustomed to it." 

"But will you be happy that way?" 

"I don't know that, either. Happiness . . . isn't really something that I've concerned myself with since that day." 

"Well, then, let your sister ease you into it. I don't like the thought of you hiding alone in some cave until you become as old and shriveled as Gaspar . . . especially when there's so much good someone as strong as you could do. So I order you to go out there and find someone to help—that can be your new purpose." 

I blinked. "Someone to _help_?" Such a ridiculous idea . . . 

Schala laughed and looked up at me. "The expression on your face right now is quite something, did you know that? But yes, I mean exactly what I said. Someone to help. Someone who needs protection and assistance. There are people out there to whom that could mean the world." 

"Schala, I . . ." 

"There isn't any hurry," my sister said. "Maybe you _should_ spend a little time alone with your magic, first. You don't have to grab on to the first person you see, either. You can wait until you find someone who really needs you and that you _want_ to help. But promise me that you'll do this." And her eyes met mine firmly. Fearlessly. 

"I . . . As you wish," I found myself saying. "I promise. One person. Someday." 

"For now, that's good enough." She sighed and . . . cuddled . . . against me, although it couldn't be all that comfortable for her, considering my armour. I found myself stroking her hair. "Mmh. I suppose I should ask you to go get Lucca—I need to explain to her about Kid, and what happened— but I don't want you to leave yet . . ." 

I cleared my throat. "Gil!" I called. 

A masked face popped over the edge of the cliff. "Yes?" 

Schala stirred in my arms. "Wait a minute—you're Guile, aren't you? Oh, that's right—you told Kid that Janus was your teacher . . . Why 'Gil', though?" 

"Because your brother knew me long before I became 'Guile', your Highness, and I know better than to ask him to change his ways." Gil flashed us both a smile. 

"I'm not anyone's 'highness'," Schala said, smiling back. "Not anymore." 

"I need you to go fetch Lucca," I said before Gil could reply. "I left her in Choras a little more than a decade ago. You saw how the time machine worked, I trust." 

"I believe I understand it well enough. If you could give me the exact date . . ." 

I provided it, and saw the reflections from his mask change as he nodded. "It will take me a few hours—Guldove is a fair distance from here, and I cannot travel as quickly unassisted as I can with your help. Look for me when the sun begins to dip toward the horizon." 

"Very well. Schala and I have a great deal to talk about, in any case." And I waved my ex-apprentice on his way with a casual flick of the wrist. 

Over the next few hours, I talked myself hoarse as we paced along the beach, telling my sister everything that had transpired between our last meeting at the Ocean Palace and Opassa. Or at least, that was what I started out doing . . . but I found that putting it all together in a way that made sense also required me to walk older, darker paths. And so I also spoke, haltingly, of my time among the Mystics—of things that I had never dared tell anyone else. Schala admitted, at one point, that she had tried to watch me—or perhaps, watch _over_ me— but the defeated Lavos to which she had been joined had permitted her to see only scraps without context. At that point, we embraced again, each of us pretending we were trying to comfort the other, rather than seeking comfort ourselves. 

There came a time when neither of us had any more words, and we stood together looking out over the ocean, holding hands and watching the sun dip down toward the waves. 

"Some things don't change," Schala observed. "Even Lavos didn't have the power to alter this—even if the world were blasted to lifelessness, the sun would go on rising and setting, and the ocean would keep moving against the shore . . . It's kind of humbling, really." 

I nodded. Humbling was a good word for it. In the end, we were nothing but a layer of green scum on the surface of the planet . . . _Albeit scum with heart and mind and will,_ I thought with a tired smile. But still, we, and even Lavos, ultimately mattered less in the scheme of things than most of humanity dared to imagine. 

The thought was . . . oddly comforting, in its way. _Even the worst I can do would not extinguish the universe._

"Hey, you two!" 

I whirled, stepping protectively in front of Schala . . . but the owner of the voice was just Lucca, who was now emerging between the cliffs to trot down the beach. A lavender cat loped by her side. 

"Guess your reunion went well," the scientist said as Gil/Alfador twined around my ankles. "I don't suppose you thought to do anything about supper, though—I missed lunch today, and I'm starved!" 

A cutting remark came to my lips, but before I could voice it, Schala started to laugh, and I forced myself to swallow it back. 

Let her laugh. No one in the world had more right than she. 

* * *

" . . . It's a pretty wild story, all told," Lucca said, staring into the fire, which flared unsteadily as juices from the large fish we were spit-roasting over it dripped down. Above our heads, the first stars were beginning to show themselves, although there was still a smear of pink and violet along the western horizon. Of all the ways my quest for Schala could have ended, an evening cook-out on a tropical beach was one I had never envisioned. "So . . . you and Kid were the same person all along, in a sense. She always did look a lot like you—even Melchior thought so. Except for the hair. Why _is_ your hair blonde now, anyway?" 

Schala smiled. "Oh, that. I did that to myself before splitting myself into Schala and Kid—otherwise Janus would have recognized her instantly for what she was. Or at least, that was my—rather muddled—thinking at the time. There wasn't much of me left that Lavos hadn't affected, and Kid got all those bits." Somehow, she had managed to tell her entire story without ending up hoarse. I envied her that. 

"I find it very odd that things turned out this way," Gil said. He had removed his mask, and looked rather peculiar, with an untanned slice of skin right across the middle of his face. "Kid was very insistent that she was an independent entity." 

Schala's smile changed subtly. "Protestin' too much, that's all, mate. If ya got a history like that suddenly shoved in yer face, ya might not want it either! But I . . . I think that after the four of us part ways, I'm not going to particularly want to be Schala most of the time. A fisherman's wife doesn't need to know about magic or politics or anything like that. I believe I'm going to enjoy the quiet life . . . Kid's quiet life." 

Lucca poked the fish with a stick of driftwood. "Hey, I think this is done. Let's eat!" 

She and Gil lifted the fish off the fire by its spit— struggling a little against the spell that had been turning the latter until I canceled it with a wave of my hand—laid it on a rock, and then stared at it in perplexity. 

"Anyone have a knife?" Lucca asked. 

I shook my head and murmured a quick spell which split the fish neatly into pieces and lifted the skeleton and offal out, leaving chunks of steaming meat resting on a bed of scaly skin. "You have no ingenuity," I said. 

Lucca rolled her eyes. "So how was I supposed to know that you knew a spell for cutting up a fish? Doesn't strike me as something that you would have needed in Zeal, or with the Mystics." Schala, I noted out of the corner of my eye, was smothering a laugh with her hand. 

"I cobbled it together during the years I spent in the era of the Fall," I explained—to my sister, mostly. "At the time, I was eating a lot of fish, since there was little else readily available." 

"Huh. You're lucky you didn't die of some kind of deficiency disease." Lucca speared a chunk of fish on her stick and took a bite. "Thish is goo', though," she said with her mouth full. 

Gil produced, from somewhere on his person, a folding fork, and Schala did have one of Kid's knives after all. I ate with my fingers—since I prefer to learn from my mistakes, my gloves were heavily enough warded that I could have picked up a live coal with them, much less a bit of cooked fish. I was never again going to scald myself through them as I had with the Mammon Machine. 

The meal seemed to make the others sleepy, and by the time I spoke a quick spell to char the offal and the fish skin to odourless carbon, Gil was already snoring, curled up on the blankets they'd spread while I'd been catching the fish, and the girls were lying down with their eyes closed, although it was difficult to tell whether they were actually asleep. 

I rose and began to walk the perimeter of what I supposed I had to call our camp, defining a rectilinear space and murmuring a spell at each corner. 

"That one's new, too," Schala said softly from behind me. "Some kind of protection?" 

"More like a tripwire. If something not within the boundaries at the time of casting attempts to pass them, it will alert me—nothing more. Naturally, it ignores anything non- hostile that's under a certain size. I thought you were asleep." 

A soft laugh. "How could I possibly sleep? I feel like I'm walking on air _without_ magical assistance. And . . . I want to spend as much time with you as I can, while you're still here." 

I began to walk down the beach toward the water, and Schala quickly moved forward to walk beside me. 

"I could stay in Arni with you, for a while," I said as we crossed the line from dry sand to wet, "but I don't think it would be wise. Especially if you're intending to settle there. My appearance—my very presence—would keep reminding people that you didn't belong." 

Schala shook her head. "I said before that I wouldn't even ask, and I meant it. We'll just have to keep in touch somehow—you can make me another one of those talismans you gave to Guile and Lucca." 

Surf was lapping lightly at my boots with every wave that rolled in. "You really do love him, don't you—this boy Serge." 

"I love him," she agreed. "I don't know why, but it's as though he's the other half of me. But . . . I don't know if he feels the same way. There was this other girl that he grew up with, Leena, that he seemed to have feelings for. If he rejects me, I don't know what I'll do." 

"You'll always have a home with me," I said softly, even though the words almost choked me. I could sabotage her chances with Serge so easily if I wanted to . . . slip into Arni in the night and threaten him . . . _No. No, I will not—I refuse to—force her to link her future with mine. After all, what do I have to offer her? I've done so much evil, by my own free choice, that I doubt my soul will ever heal of it . . . I will open my hand, and let her go free. What's a little more pain, on top of what I've already suffered? I've never shrunk from anything before just because it was difficult, or because it hurt._ But, oh, I wanted . . . wanted so very much . . . 

"Thank you, Janus." Unexpectedly, Schala turned and hugged me, and I had to fight down an unexpected and very physical response that for some reason hadn't plagued me earlier that day. 

"One way or the other, it will be all right," I said, and forced myself to believe it. 

That way she would hopefully believe it, too. 

* * *

Arni was . . . a tropical fishing village, I suppose. Little two- and three-room grass huts on stilts built in a loose wedge that pointed to the end of a weathered wooden dock. The sort of quiet place where nothing ever happened, and the arrival of strangers was a major event. 

"Welcome to Arni!" The old man standing idly by the gate stared at us as he spoke. I suppose that, by his standards, we were worthy of being stared at—Gil with his mask, Lucca with her helmet and gun, me with my hood up to shadow my face . . . Even Schala's white dress stood out when compared to the colourful clothing of the villagers. "Can I help you folks?" 

Schala smiled at him. "I'm looking for Serge. Do you know where he is?" 

"Serge? I think he's over on the dock, talking to Leena. Huh. He's been acting weird the past day or two . . . you wouldn't happen to be the reason, would you, little lady?" 

"That's one of the things I intend to talk to him about," Schala said, smile never wavering. "Thank you for your help." 

More people turned to stare as we crossed the center of the village—in fact, we acquired a tail of curious, half-naked little children. Gil and I ignored them, but Lucca gave them a grin and a wink that resulted in a chorus of giggles. 

Schala led the way between two houses at the far end of the village and out onto the dock. Two people, a girl and a young man, stood together at the end of the ribbon of weathered wood. They appeared to have been talking before our arrival had interrupted them. The girl was staring at us as a group, with the same puzzled and curious expression as the rest of the villagers, but her companion had eyes only for Schala. 

Was this her Serge? I studied him thoughtfully. Lithely muscled body. Open, honest face. Aura of a latent lightning-element with a warm heart. A healthy youth, and I saw no sign in him of the darknesses that plagued me. Indeed, he reminded me a bit of Crono, although there was very little physical resemblance. Perhaps not what I would have chosen for my sister had it been given to me to choose, but he would do, provided he wasn't a congenital idiot. 

" . . . Kid," he said slowly as Schala drew nearer. "You're Kid, aren't you?" 

My sister gave him a broad grin. "Beauty, mate! You remembered! Wasn't sure you would, after everything that happened." 

Serge began to walk toward her. Then the walk became a trot, and I think he would have accelerated into a run if the dock had been a little longer . . . or if Schala hadn't been moving forward to meet him with equal speed. Neither of them stopped quite in time, so they arrived in each other's arms with quite considerable force. That, and the stumbling struggle for balance that followed, made both of them laugh. 

"It was all real, wasn't it?" Serge said slowly. "The other world . . . the Dragon Tear . . . the Frozen Flame . . . even the Darkness Beyond Time . . ." 

"Yes. Yes, it was," my sister said. 

"Then . . . Are you Kid, or Schala?" 

". . . Both, in a way. Does that bother you?" 

Serge shrugged. "I don't pretend that I know Schala . . . but if even part of you is Kid, I guess things'll work out somehow." 

The girl Leena cleared her throat. "Serge, you know these people?" 

"Sort of. This is Kid . . . or Schala . . . um . . . Which are you going to go by?" 

"I hadn't decided yet," my sister said. 

"The man in the mask is Guile," Serge continued. "The other two I don't know." 

"We've been . . . kind of out of circulation for a while," Lucca said. "I'm Lucca, Kid's foster mother, and this is Janus, Schala's brother, who's still sulking because she wouldn't let him try to rescue her." 

"I am not _sulking_ ," I said with cold precision. 

"Then what would you call it?" Lucca asked with a grin. "I mean, you haven't threatened to kill anyone in nearly twenty-four hours—for you, that's a pretty deep sulk." 

"I can remedy the lack of death threats very quickly," I warned her. "Or perhaps we could bypass the threats and go straight to the main event." 

"If you were going to kill me, you would have done it a long time ago." 

"Don't think that your continued survival makes you immune—" 

"Um, are they married?" Leena asked. 

There was a moment of stunned silence before Gil started to laugh. 

"Just old friends," Lucca said. "And thankfully never likely to be anything more than that. We're both too independent." 

I just muttered a curse in High Zeala. Gil was still laughing. 

"I think I preferred you as a cat," I told him acidically, but that only made him laugh harder. 

"Oookay," Leena said. "So what brings you four to Arni?" 

"I was the one who wanted to come here," Schala explained. "The others are just tagging along. I wanted to see Serge again." 

"Ignoring for a moment that there's no way you two could possibly have met without me knowing about it . . . _why_ did you want to see him?" 

Schala blushed. "Well, um . . . that's none of yer bizzo! I mean, it ain't like he's yer husband or anythin'!" I didn't know whether to be amused or disturbed by the way Kid's accent had suddenly invaded her speech. 

Leena planted her hands on her hips. "Serge, have you been seeing this girl behind my back?" 

Serge made an odd little noise in his throat. "I . . . um . . . oh, hell, Leena, I don't know how to explain . . ." He was blushing too. 

"Perhaps you should just propose and get it over with," Gil, finally over his laughing fit, suggested helpfully. 

" _Pro—_ I . . . uh . . ." Serge looked involuntarily at Schala again . . . and ended up staring into her eyes for quite a long time. "Kid—Schala—whatever you decide your name is . . . Will you marry me?" 

"'Course I will," my sister said, sounding very satisfied, although Kid's peculiar accent was still colouring her speech quite strongly. "Why'd it take ya so long to ask?" 

Leena's jaw dropped, and she stared at them. Then she slowly drew her mouth shut again, and her expression was that of someone who had been betrayed. "Serge, you . . . you _idiot!_ " And she ran off down the dock, nearly ending up in the water as she dodged past us. 

Lucca sighed. "I think I'd better go talk to her—she was crying, poor kid." 

"And I believe I will go to the cafe," Gil said. "Janus?" 

Instead of answering directly, I used a murmured phrase to teleport myself out of Arni. Then I drew an illusion of invisibility around myself and flew over to settle on the wall of the compound attached to one side of the village. I wanted to watch the inhabitants of Arni, and how they reacted to Schala, without them being aware of my presence. Schala herself would know I was there, of course, as would Gil, but hopefully they would have the sense to keep their mouths shut. 

Lucca caught up to Leena just outside one of the huts. At first it looked like the girl wanted to slap her, but then Lucca said something, and she hesitated. They talked for quite a while. At one point, Leena started crying again, and Lucca hugged her. The girl was still wiping her eyes occasionally as they sat down together on the steep ramp leading up to the door of the hut. Those ramps were an odd architectural feature—I could have understood the necessity for them if the huts had been on stilts, but most of the little grass houses had another storey built at ground level. They couldn't be defensive, because Arni wasn't defensible: one fire spell, or even a fire arrow or flung torch, would burn the entire settlement to the ground. My best guess was that they were a tradition held over from a time when the huts _had_ been built on stilts. 

Schala and Serge came up from the docks arm-in- arm, and walked over to where a middle-aged woman was hanging out her laundry. A brief conversation, then the older woman embraced Serge, and gave Schala an assessing look before doing the same to her. Other people began to drift over to the trio . . . offering congratulations? The expressions on their faces certainly seemed to suggest it. Several of the women began to chatter excitedly, then went off together. One of them paused to speak to Leena, who offered her a tremulous smile and rose to go with her. Lucca, grinning, slapped the younger girl on the back, then got up and went over to Schala and Serge. 

The older woman to whom Serge had first spoken— and now that I looked, I could see a certain resemblance there, leading me to believe she was his mother—took Schala's hand and began to tug her toward one of the huts, but Schala gestured for her to wait. To my surprise, she turned to face the wall on which I was perched, and beckoned sharply. I hesitated, then dissipated my illusion of invisibility with a casual gesture, slid down off the wall and, landing lightly on my feet, walked over to see what she wanted. 

"I'm sorry," Schala said. "I know you probably didn't want to be seen, but—" 

"It's all right," I replied softly. "What did you need?" 

"I . . . We're going to have the wedding tonight." 

My eyebrows rose. "That seems . . . somewhat rushed." 

"I suppose it is, but I want you there, and I don't expect that you're going to want to stay here for long, or come back once you leave. Just this once, I want everything and everyone there—both my pasts, and my future, side by side." 

"I _would_ come back, if you asked me to." 

Schala smiled. "I know, and I'm not going to ask. Janus, I need to make a clean break with the past . . . and I think that maybe you do, too. Letting things drag on won't accomplish that. But you'll stay for tonight, won't you? And wish us well?" 

"Any blessing from me is likely to be more of a curse," I said softly. "But if you want me here, I will stay." 

"Thank you." She patted my arm through the layer of cloak covering it. 

Serge's mother cleared her throat. "Sorry to interrupt, but once I find those sarongs, they're probably going to need to be altered, since you and Serge are both shorter than Wazuki and I were when we got married. If they're going to be done for tonight . . ." 

"I understand. Janus, I'll see you tonight." 

I stared thoughtfully at Serge's back as the three of them moved off together, and saw his shoulders hunch, as though under the weight of my gaze. I allowed myself a wry half-smile, for that certainly hadn't been the effect I'd been intending to produce. 

I stayed in the same place for several minutes while the village eddied around me. 

_Schala . . ._

I was going to lose my sister for good, after tonight. But in a sense, that had always been the point, hadn't it? 

* * *

I lurked at the edge of the circle of light shed by the bonfire as the dancing began, nibbling idly at the remains of a stick-roasted whole fish. Gil and Lucca, unlike me, seemed quite happy to be at the center of everything—indeed, Gil had Leena on his arm, and was managing to coax the odd unforced smile from her. 

The people of Arni were studiously ignoring me, and for the most part I was returning the favour. They had gotten a good look at me earlier, when Lucca and I had stood beside Schala at the wedding proper . . . although I had gone through the whole ceremony with my hood still shadowing my face. An illusion spell would have dealt with the problem, of course, but I was oddly reluctant to use such things here . . . No, if I were honest, I would admit that I was reluctant to use such things _in front of Schala_. Bad enough that she knew of the swathe of destruction I had cut through the sixth century; I would not provide her with evidence that I was a hypocrite as well. 

I turned away from the light of the fire and the wild circle-dance going on around it—when had Lucca ended up with a grinning fisherman on each arm?—and considered leaving the party altogether. Schala was laughing, caught up in the moment, and taking no notice of me. 

"Hey. Janus." 

I should have sensed him coming up behind me, despite his weak latent's aura, but I had been preoccupied . . . and besides, I had never expected that the bridegroom would be allowed to drift over to the edge of the party like this. 

"What do you want?" I asked, tossing my fish—down to little more than bones now—aside. A ridiculous-looking oversized pink dog snatched it up and made off with it almost immediately. 

"Do I have to want something?" Serge asked challengingly. Away from Schala, he was no longer blushing or stuttering. 

"I would hate to think that you abandoned my sister for no reason," I said sharply. 

"She was right—you're way too protective. No, I came over here because I wanted to talk to you." 

I waited. Eventually, Serge gave up on me and spoke again. 

"It's . . . well . . . There are some things she just won't talk to me about. Like pretty much all of her life as Schala. I tried tackling Lucca, but she said you were the one to ask. I don't understand why she's afraid of her past." 

My hand, hidden under my cape, traced the upper edge of the steel crescent into which I had set Schala's amulet. "I doubt it's fear that keeps her from speaking. If I were to guess, I would say that the cause is lingering pain. Schala and I were both torn from our world. We watched it die. And even before that, our life in Zeal's royal palace was not a happy one. Our father dead, our mother going madder by the day and seeing plots to topple her from the throne lurking in every shadow, and Lavos' taint spreading over everything . . . I understand why she wants to forget." 

Serge grimaced. "Okay, I can understand that . . . but she won't talk about you either. Except to say that you're her brother and she loves you, and I could have guessed that without asking. She won't tell me why you hide your face, or why just getting near you makes shivers run up and down my spine. I mean, I know you're a mage, but I never got feelings like this from Guile or Sneff or Riddel . . . " 

I smiled thinly, although I knew he couldn't see. "It's likely my aura that you sense—powerful shadow magic is disturbing to most people. Gil—Guile if you prefer—has a much weaker aura than I, and I expect that the others you mention are the same, and very likely not of the same element, either. I am the final product of Zeal's attempts to breed human beings for stronger magic . . . and something of a freak even by that standard. I am somewhat surprised that a latent like you could sense me, though." 

"And the hood?" 

"A simple question with a complex answer. My appearance is . . . distinctive. Some find it disturbing. If others here were to see what she claims as kin, they might be unwilling to let Schala stay in Arni. And furthermore, the Porrean High Command has an old grudge against me. I would prefer that they not find out that I even know where Arni is." An afterthought, but accurate in its way. 

Serge blinked. "What did you do to the Porreans?" 

"I chopped their hands off at the wrists when they reached for Guardia." 

"But that was . . . Then you're—" To give the boy some credit, he wasn't backing away from me. 

"It would be best not to speak that name here," I said. "And if you have any sense, you will forget you ever realized it had anything to do with me." 

I murmured a word and flicked my wrist, setting an illusion between us and the fire. And then I did draw my hood down, and let Serge have a good long stare. 

"Tell Lucca to stop trying to spare my feelings," I said when I thought I'd given him enough time. "She doesn't know some of the details of my history, but she knows enough to give you a broad outline . . . and more than that, you don't need." 

"But our kids . . . when we have kids . . ." 

"It's vanishingly unlikely that any of your children will be a shadow-element," I said tiredly. "And I suspect that Schala will prefer that all of her children remain in ignorance of the magic in their blood. One way or the other, the royal line of Zeal will end with me. I repeat: you don't need to know about me. And . . . Serge?" 

" . . . Yes?" 

"If you _ever_ hurt her, I will tear your liver out and eat it in front of you as you die, slowly and in tremendous pain." 

His mouth worked, but I didn't choose to wait until he gathered his wits together enough to say anything. Instead, I spoke a teleport spell and left El Nido, with no intent to ever return.


	6. VI. Angelus Errare

I spent the next three years in near-total solitude, self-exiled from the human race. When I left the vault underneath the ruins of my old castle, it was mostly to explore the fragments of frozen history trapped in the Darkness Beyond Time. Now that I was no longer searching it for Schala, I found the Darkness . . . almost peaceful, and the Reptite fragments were fascinating. 

I did visit Truce once, and discovered Lucca rebuilding the big old house on the southern island that had been the site of so much tragedy, although she appeared to be putting a wall around it this time. She had already acquired a quartet of new orphans, who hid behind her and peeked out at me, terrified, as we spoke. After that, I didn't go back. 

Gil dropped in on me whenever he drifted through the general area, which happened four or five times. Repeatedly, he urged me to involve myself with the doings of the Magic Guild, but I wasn't interested. I'd had enough of politics and human egos for a while. 

I think the only other person to whom I spoke voluntarily during those years was Gaspar. I went to the End of Time more than once, seeking more information on the Darkness, timeline fracture, and related phenomena, until the old Guru informed me with a smile that I undoubtedly now knew more about such matters than he did. 

It was in the Darkness that I found the beginning of the next phase of my life. And it was completely unexpected. 

I was exploring a fragment of Robo's future one day when I was startled to see a flash of colour against the pale grey of the ashen ground. I ducked cautiously behind a worn and crumbled bit of stone wall, just in case I had discovered another wanderer who might not be well-disposed toward me. Examining that patch of colour from concealment, I saw . . . 

_Schala?!_

I shook my head violently, trying to clear it. There was no way my sister could possibly be here. This girl who lay sprawled unconscious on the ground had to be someone else, despite her mane of light blue hair. In any case, she was no danger in her present state, and I left concealment to kneel beside her, fighting a sense of deja vu—what was it that caused me to run across unconscious young women in this place? 

Now that I was close, I could sense the tatters of her aura. This girl was a mage . . . a lightning mage with a silvery, moonlight aura . . . just as I remembered Schala's being when I had met her as the Prophet, although the blonde Schala I had left behind in El Nido had possessed a warmer aura bearing all the colours of the sun, like Kid's . . . 

Gently, I smoothed her hair back from her face . . . and froze. Not just Schala's aura, but Schala's face . . . and yet, she could not be my sister. Or . . . could this somehow be a past Schala, arrived here from the Ocean Palace, but not yet joined to the Lavos remnant that had caused her so much grief? After all, there was no time in the Darkness, and even Gaspar wasn't sure whether there was any kind of sequential order to events taking place here. 

Her clothes were shredded, and I could see bruises flowering on her skin, but that could easily have resulted from her being flung against walls and furniture by the rushing waters of the sea as they filled the building. The raggedness of her aura and the fact that the personal spells that every adult Enlightened One carried with him or her didn't seem to be keeping her clean and warm as they should have, I put down to Lavos. But something still wasn't quite right . . . Then it hit me. _Her pendant—where is it?_ If she had come here from the Ocean Palace, she should have had it with her . . . had she dropped it, perhaps? 

I looked around. She had arrived over there at _that_ point and then crawled a few feet before collapsing . . . I frowned. There was _something_ there— not the pendant, but some kind of distortion in the fabric of non- time . . . I could sense it, but not understand it, and this was not the time for a detailed analysis. But if it was important . . . 

Cursing the necessity, for they were time-consuming and magically expensive to create, I took a beacon from an inner pocket of my cape. This wasn't the first time I had wanted to be able to find a particular fragment floating in the Darkness again, and I had developed the grape-sized spheres with their liquid black surfaces to do that job for me. I spoke the word of activation and laid the little talisman on the ground, feeling the thin pulse of modulated shadow magic and fixing the pattern in my mind as belonging to this place. Then I shook out the square of felt on which I'd painted the crescent symbol that would focus the spell I needed to transport myself out of the Darkness, and laid it on the ground as well. 

Leaving Schala there never occurred to me for an instant. I didn't care if I negated her future with Serge—I just was not willing to let her remain in distress if there was something I could do to change things. 

She whimpered as I lifted her into my arms, and her left hand, which had been half-hidden by her body before, swung into view. I found my eyes riveted to that hand, despite the awkward angle I needed to crane my neck at in order to see it. It was swollen to nearly twice its normal size, the thumb was clearly dislocated, and I thought that at least two of the fingers were broken. That had never happened to her at the Ocean Palace— something borne by the rushing waters might have smashed her hand, but none of her flesh was mangled as far as I could tell. It was a pattern that spoke of deliberate torture, not accident. And unless Schala had lied to me when we had spoken on Opassa Beach, no such thing had ever been done to her. 

What was going on here? _Was_ this woman my sister, or some ancestor or cousin who, by coincidence of heredity, was near-identical in both appearance and aura? That she was of the Enlightened, I didn't doubt—shredded and de- spelled or no, I could recognize a Zealish court robe when I saw one. 

She shivered and tried to press her body closer to mine, and I muttered a curse. There would be time enough to ask questions later. For now, I needed to get this girl out of the Darkness Beyond Time, and tend her injuries. _Then_ I would worry about who she was. Better that I help someone who wasn't Schala than that I let my sister come to harm. 

I took the three steps necessary to place myself squarely on my pre-made symbol, and spoke the spell that took us from the wan grey light of a moment frozen in time to the bluish glow of etheric illumination in my old workroom. 

After one too many nights of sleeping upright in a chair had left me with a stiff neck, I'd set up a bedroom of sorts, with a narrow cot and not much else, in the little storage room just off the workroom proper . I laid maybe-Schala on top of the rumpled blankets—the bedding was self-cleaning but not self- arranging—and bent over her to make a closer examination of her condition. The results were . . . less than enlightening. Her hand was indeed the worst of it, each finger broken with loving expertise and then the whole left to swell into a solid mass. There were bands of bruising around her wrists, legs, waist, and neck, suggesting that she had been under restraint, and her hands and knees bore scrapes that indicated she'd crawled over more than just those few feet of ground in the Darkness. 

The lesser hurts responded to concentrated tonic, but the hand was a problem. In the end, I used tonic to take the swelling down, then forced the thumb back into its socket, splinted the fingers, and applied more tonic. I'd been making a little progress with healing spells lately—using energy stored in a crystal or similar device didn't cause the same problems as elemental cloaking, although creating such a crystal in the first places required massive amounts of raw power—but I had never tried one on anyone but myself, and I didn't think that this was the time to experiment. I also rebuilt the girl's personal spells, or at least the ones I recognized from their fragmentary remains—I'd made a little progress in magical analysis, too—as best I could, and stripped off her rags so that I could wrap her in a blanket. 

Lying there, she looked so helpless and so very much like Schala . . . A ripple of heat ran through my body, and my hands clenched into fists. Deliberately, I turned away from the bed, ignoring the barest hint of a whisper that was speaking from the secret, blackened depths of my soul, suggesting things that I could do to her and ways that I could keep her from waking while I was doing them. Whoever this girl was, she didn't deserve more hurt from me, and I would not allow my self- control to falter in a way that would allow me to cause such. For now, I would leave her to heal as much as she could, and go to Arni. If she was Schala, then there would have been changes in the little fishing village. And if she wasn't . . . well, I still wanted to talk to my sister. 

It was night in El Nido . . . although for all I knew, it might be night among the Black God's Teeth as well, since I didn't often leave the vaults except to lay in new supplies. Arni was silent, limned in black and silver, as I cast around for my sister's aura. I found it at last in a small, newish hut near the village's entrance. 

I didn't try to slip inside. Instead, I whispered a few words and sent a pulse of power from myself to her, gently repeating the action until I sensed her starting to move through the building. 

I took up a station beside the entrance ramp, but I didn't have to wait for long before Schala appeared in the doorway. 

I blinked up at her. The garment loosely wrapped around her probably would have been brightly coloured in better light, but the moon turned the patterns on it to grey-blue ghosts that somehow emphasized the bulge of her abdomen. 

My sister was pregnant. 

_So what did you expect?_ I asked myself. _She's married. Given her personality, it's inevitable that she would want children. This is_ not _some kind of betrayal._ As for why she hadn't mentioned it in her last letter to me a couple of months ago . . . well, perhaps she had been meaning to tell me after the baby was born. 

"Janus . . . this isn't just a social visit, is it? Not from you, not in the middle of the night. What's wrong?" 

"I need a bit of advice," I said. Then, as an afterthought, "I also need to borrow a dress." 

"Well, all right, but I don't think I have anything that would fit you." 

I stared at her blankly for a moment. "It isn't for me." In fact, I hadn't even considered that interpretation of my words as a possibility. 

My sister was grinning, and her eyes sparkled with laughter. "I didn't really think it was, but . . . " 

"Perhaps I had better explain the situation before you wander off any further in the wrong direction," I said dryly. 

"I'm all ears," Schala said, sitting down on the ramp. Her smile slowly faded as I spoke. "Whoever she is, she certainly isn't me," she said after I was done. "After all, I'm still right here, and I don't remember you pulling me out of the Darkness, or having a broken hand. But you said she seemed to have entered the area through some sort of distortion . . . Could it have been an Angelus Errare?" 

I frowned, reviewing what I had sensed in the Darkness scant hours ago. "An opening to another world? I suppose it could be—I've never actually seen one. It didn't match your descriptions of the one at Opassa, but that one was hardly in its natural state. Hmph. That would mean that she _is_ you, although her history may differ." 

"Poor thing," my sister said softly. "From the sound of it, she's had to suffer everything I did and more. It's a wonder she's still alive. After Mother went mad, I thought more than once about . . . just ending it, you know, but I couldn't leave you there alone. She would have killed you . . . or made you the next Arbiter, which would potentially have been even worse." 

"I could very easily have destroyed the world," I agreed, but my mind was elsewhere. Schala . . . suicidal? I'd never known—never even guessed— 

"Janus, it's all right—it didn't happen. _Augh._ Stop that, you little beast—those are my kidneys!" Her eyes were sparkling with laughter again as she lowered a hand to her stomach. 

"When is the baby due?" I asked softly. 

"Another month. Hopefully, I can put up with this that much longer without going insane—I feel like a bloody elephant!" For a moment, Kid's accent coloured her speech. "We're going to name her Lucca if she's a girl," my sister added. "Wazuki—after Serge's father—if we get a boy instead." 

"Lucca will probably like that," I said. 

Schala nodded. "Anyway, about my lookalike . . . Are you going to try to help her?" 

"If I can." Meeting her eyes, I added, "I did promise you that I would." And it was true. At some point, the other Schala had become the "someone" of my oath. 

A warm smile. "Yes, you did." My sister rose awkwardly to her feet. "I'll go see if I can find something that would fit her. Good thing most of my normal clothes are in storage right now, or I'd probably end up waking Serge while I bumbled around the bedroom in the dark." 

"A night-sight spell—" I began, but Schala was already shaking her head. 

"Janus, when I said I was giving up my magic, I meant it—I haven't cast a spell since I was freed from Lavos. Nor will I, ever again. I'm just a fisherman's wife, nothing more. Anyway, I'll be back in a moment—don't go anywhere!" 

_You are far braver than I,_ I thought as she disappeared back inside. I could not have given up the use of my magic. Not for anything. 

_Not even for her?_ I asked myself . . . and decided that I was very glad that I had never been faced with that decision. 

Schala reappeared a few moments later with something white folded over one arm, and a bundle in her hand. I looked at the latter and raised my eyebrows. 

"A pair of new sandals," my sister explained. "And some normal food—bread, fruit, that sort of thing—since I have a feeling that you've gone back to a diet of raw fish, and she isn't going to be able to handle that." 

". . . Thank you," I said after fishing for words for a moment. "Schala . . ." 

"Shh. It's been good to see you again, Janus." Somehow, the transfer of the bundle and what I now realized was a familiar white dress turned into an embrace, made awkward by my sister's pregnancy and the fact she was still standing on the ramp. "Take care, and look after her—my not- twin, I mean." 

I nodded. For a moment, it seemed as though neither of us would be able to break away, then Schala gave me one last smile and turned to climb up the ramp. I turned away as well, and spoke a teleportation spell. 

The other Schala still lay in the same position on her narrow bed, but at least her aura was beginning to rebuild itself, indicating that her magic reserves were being refilled. I had no intention of waking her until that process was complete, and so I floated around the room, hanging the dress on a hook and placing what any Enlightened One would consider the basic spells of civilization on it in what didn't even amount to a whisper. Likewise the preservation spells on the food, set on a shelf, and a cooling spell on a pitcher of fresh water. After a moment's thought, I added an unsigned note written in High Zeala: _Everything in this room is at your disposal._

Then I went to my library and, since I was more than a bit tired myself, fell asleep sitting up in my desk chair, not caring that it was going to leave me with a stiff neck. 

When my eyes snapped open several hours later, it took me a moment to understand why. All I knew was that something wasn't quite right. I frowned, extended my senses . . . detected a silvery aura in the hall, and realized that I was hearing the soft scuffle of footsteps. Of course, that would have been it— the tiniest of sounds, but out of place here, where scarcely anyone but myself had set foot in the past four centuries. 

I considered getting up and going into the hallway, but decided after a moment's thought to remain where I was. Hopefully I would seem less threatening to her seated and with a book in my hands—I reached for one and opened it—than I would if I were looming over her. Making myself seem unthreatening wasn't something I had much experience at, however . . . if it was even truly possible, which I doubted. 

I pretended to read as I listened to her footsteps hesitantly approaching the half-open door. I wasn't absorbing a damned thing from the book, of course, although I did take the time to make certain that I at least had it right side up. Instead, I was wondering what this Schala would think of me, as nervous as a youth on a blind date . . . a comparison that should have been worthy of derisive laughter on my part. _Should_ have been. But some part of my mind kept on saying, _What if . . . ?_ and _What if . . . ?_ until I began to grow heartily sick of it. 

At last, I heard the sound of the door being pushed the rest of the way open, and a soft clearing of the throat. I swiveled my chair around to face the doorway. 

The white dress—the same one my Schala had worn on Opassa Beach—suited her perhaps a little too well, I decided. It made her look ghostly and unreal. Without speaking, I closed my book, laid it in my lap, and clasped my hands together on top of it, allowing her the time for a good stare. 

"I trust that you're feeling better, Princess," I finally said, when the silence started to grow uncomfortable. 

"Yes, thank you." I won't claim that she met my eyes fearlessly, but she did meet them. "You appear to have the advantage of me." 

"My name is Janus." I surveyed her carefully for signs of recognition, and found none, although she did offer me a small curtsey. I returned an equally small seated bow. 

"How did I come to be here?" 

"What is the last thing you remember?" I countered. 

She shuddered visibly. "Flinging myself into the void, in order to escape Dalton and Belthasar and that masked woman . . . I thought I was going to die, but at that point I knew I was also better off dead . . ." She couldn't seem to stop shaking. I set my book aside on the desk and rose to my feet, taking off my cape and draping it around her shoulders instead. 

"Sit down before you fall down," I ordered gruffly. "And don't worry: you're safe here. I swear it." 

She was staring in my direction, but somehow not quite at me . . . reading my aura? I leaned back against a bookcase, forcing a casual air on myself. 

"Begin at the beginning," I told her as her shivering stilled. "Leave nothing out. I have been isolated here for . . . some years . . . and have no idea what may have been happening at the High Court of Zeal during that time. I'm not even certain what year it is, from your point of view." 

"The twenty-second of King Marus' reign," she replied softly. 

I blinked slowly, absorbing that. In this universe, my father had died early in the nineteenth year of his reign, and Zeal had fallen toward the end of what would have been the twenty- first. This girl was indeed from another world. 

"Go on," I prompted, folding my arms across my chest and settling in to listen. 

"It's hard to know where to begin," she said slowly. "I . . . can't sense the Sun Stone here . . . were you even aware that it was failing?" 

I tilted my head noncommittally to hide the racing of my mind. No Mammon Machine, and therefore her Zeal hadn't fallen . . . yet. Political consequences . . . "I take it that there is some argument as to what to do about it." 

She nodded. "Guru Melchior discovered that the Frozen Flame could be used as an energy source . . . but after analyzing the quality of its power, he also advised against it. My father went along with him, but Guru Belthasar and Lord Dalton disagreed. The next most popular plan involves sacrificing the weakest mages and using their energies to recharge the Sun Stone—father won't accept that one either, of course, but he doesn't know what to offer in its place. I think . . ." Her voice trailed off into silence. 

I waited. 

"We have to give it up," she whispered at last. "Go to live with the Earthbound. We would lose everything, but at least we would still be alive. Zeal's survival isn't worth the horrible things we would have to do to ensure it." 

"A plan for which it would be difficult to gather popular support," I said. 

Schala laughed, sounding as though it hurt her. "'Difficult' isn't the word I would have chosen. Belthasar had me kidnapped in order to silence me. He and Dalton believed that if I went over to their side, I would be able to persuade my father to exploit the Frozen Flame. Oh, and Dalton thought that my agreement would be best indicated by my also agreeing to marry him. This—" She held up her splinted hand. "—was Dalton's idea of how to convince me to go along with them. Then Belthasar decided that Dalton was being inefficient, and attempted to show off the . . . potential . . . of some of his research. He thought that I would stand there tamely and watch his demonstration. Instead, I threw myself into the warp his device created. It was the only thing I could think of to do . . . I couldn't be used against my father if I was dead." She drew my cape more closely around her with her good hand. "I almost remember—or perhaps it was just a nightmare—a darkness, and then somewhere grey and cold . . ." 

Dalton, Belthasar . . . and Lavos. _What an appropriate combination._ The cockroach, the serpent, and the essence of all evil . . . 

"Now it's your turn," the blue-haired girl who was not my sister said firmly. "Where are we? I didn't think there was a place in the world where I would be unable to feel the Sun Stone's power. Normally, I can sense it even in Algetty, and we aren't nearly that far below the surface here, are we? And the Black Wind . . . " 

My mouth flattened into a thin line. "You cannot sense the Sun Stone because, in this time and place, it doesn't exist. It was long ago drained to a powerless Moon Stone. And the Black Wind is all but silent because no doom hangs over this world . . . for the time being." 

She blinked. "What are you saying?" 

"That you have managed to transport yourself into another world . . . and more than ten thousand years into the future, for that matter, although for the most part that last is my fault." 

"That makes absolutely no sense. Why would someone from another world know Zeal . . . know _me_ . . . as you clearly do?" 

I wondered if she even realized that she was pressing her body back into the depths of the chair, as though trying to escape me. 

"I could attempt to explain, but first, I would like to show you something," I said. "Can you teleport yourself about fourteen feet straight up?" 

"Not without the Sun Stone's support." 

I muttered a curse . . . which made her blush, since unlike most people in the modern world, she shared my native tongue and actually understood what I was saying. I would have to remember to be more cautious of that. "Zeal and its reliance on channeling power . . . A moment." A few murmured words caused a volume on lightning- and wind-based transportation magics, which had been resting on an upper shelf at the far end of the room, to appear in my hand with a soft _pop!_ I paged through it for a moment until I found what I wanted. "Here: this should serve." It would have been easier to just lift her out of the chair and perform the teleport myself, but I doubted she trusted me that much just now. 

Schala reached out hesitantly and accepted it. "This is . . . Oh, never mind, I'll ask later." She read over the schema slowly, then stood up and read it aloud, making the appropriate gestures and substituting the correct distance and direction into the spaces provided for them—it was a very simple and mechanical straight-line spell. As she finished, I murmured a brief phrase of my own, and succeeded in reaching the surface just in time to grasp her shoulder and steady her when dropping six inches to uneven rocky ground caused her to lose her balance. 

"It's warm," she said softly, staring out across the island's sandy little beach and out over the ocean, glittering in the midday sun, to the horizon. "This is not the surface, and yet it cannot be Zeal . . . we have no lakes even nearly so large." 

I smiled thinly. "That is the sea, Princess, and you _are_ on the surface . . . several thousand years after the end of the Ice Age that you remember. This island on which we stand is one of the few fragments remaining of the eastern half of the continent on which Algetty once rested. However, feel free to go down to the water's edge and test it to make certain that it is no illusion—while it would be a waste of power to create something on this scale, I am certainly capable of it." 

"The fact that you offer me the opportunity suggests that it is not," she said soberly. "I am ready to listen to you now, I think." 

The sea breeze ruffled my hair. Now that it was time to talk about this, I scarcely knew where to begin . . . was there a Prince Janus in her world? One would expect her to have mentioned him when I had given her my name, if he existed . . . _Why is it so important to me that she not know?_

I dismissed the question with a small shake of my head, and began, "What you have already said suggests to me that our two worlds had much the same history until the latter days of Zeal. However, in this world, King Marus' reign ended in its nineteenth year." I wasn't going to tell her exactly how—she had enough to worry about. "Since the Schala of this world wasn't yet of age, Queen Aleana took her husband's place on the throne . . . but she was half-mad with grief and disregarded Melchior's warnings about what might happen if the Frozen Flame was used as an energy source. She ordered it exploited." 

Schala was still watching me carefully, but I suddenly could not bear to look at her, and turned my head away. 

"In the third year of Queen Aleana's reign, which would have been the twenty-first of her husband's, we discovered the price of relying on the Flame's energy," I said. "Zeal . . . did not survive that revelation. The islands fell from the sky, killing tens of thousands . . . and the tidal waves that resulted when everything tumbled down into the sea decimated the Earthbound as well. The nature and intensity of the disaster was such that a few people were flung forward through time, into the future . . . myself among them. I recognized you for who you are because I knew this world's Princess Schala." 

A slender, warm hand touched my forearm just above the cuff of my glove. Startled, I turned to face the blue-haired girl who was not my sister. 

"I believe you," she said softly. "You didn't need to show me all this, either. No one's aura bleeds that way for a lie." 

Were the wounds still that deep, after forty years? Or was I simply so deeply damaged that, even after everything I had done, I would never quite heal? 

" . . . Janus. Is there a way for me to return home?" 

"To your world? If I understand correctly how you got to where I found you, I should be able to take you back. But . . . are you certain that that is what you want? If you were to remain in this world, you would be free of obligation—" I gritted my teeth together and forced myself to stop speaking. 

"No," came the reply, accompanied by a sad smile. "No, I wouldn't. Staying here would just mean that I was running away. I am my father's heir, and I have a responsibility to the people of Zeal. And it isn't the same world. Whatever it is that has you so deeply terrified for me . . . it won't happen." A small pause. "This world's Schala was . . . important to you, wasn't she?" 

"Am I so transparent?" The sea wind swirled sand at me, and while long-established spells kept it from my face, it stung the bare skin of my arms. 

"Not . . . transparent, exactly . . . but I can't think of another reason why someone like you would be so deeply concerned for the welfare of a total stranger." 

"Perhaps, having rescued you, I simply feel somewhat responsible for your future survival," I said with a scowl. 

"So that all your hard work doesn't go to waste?" Her smile warmed as she spoke. 

I shrugged. 

"I won't claim that I'm not frightened," she said, smile fading. "I am. More than you can imagine. It's taking all of Father's efforts just to prevent a civil war. He has so very little left for protecting what's precious to him, and I'm not always strong enough to protect myself . . ." 

" . . . I'll go with you." It was what I had promised my sister, after all: that I would look after this young woman who was everything she had been. 

"You'll . . . but . . ." 

"It isn't as though there's anything keeping me here," I said, firmly quashing the little voices in the depths of my mind that had the temerity to suggest otherwise. Gil, Lucca, and my sister . . . none of them had actually _needed_ me in the past three years. And there was this as well: Melchior's long-ago assessment of my physical state appeared to have been correct. If I was aging, I couldn't detect it. This world, as it spun on toward the future, was going to have less and less of a place for someone whose primary skill was that of wielding Lavos' tainted gift of magic. I had nothing against technology, but living in a world where I had to rub shoulders with it every day . . . wasn't something that I would choose. I could perhaps reset the clock a time or two, return to a point in the past that I hadn't yet visited, but that always carried with it the inherent risk of altering something in the past that I didn't want changed. Not to mention that at some point, history was going to be saturated with Maguses. 

Sooner or later, I would have been driven to explore the myriad of worlds crouching behind the portals in the Darkness Beyond Time. The opportunity to pass through one where I would have some idea of what was waiting for me on the other side was near-priceless. 

And then, of course, there was the minor matter of an unfallen Zeal whose future was _not_ known, a Zeal that could perhaps yet be saved from Lavos and from itself . . . No matter how often I told myself otherwise, there was a part of me that would always recognize the floating islands as the only true home I had ever had, and desire to return there no matter what the price. 

"If you truly want to come with me, I would be grateful for your help," Schala was saying. 

"Then it's settled," I said. "I do have some preparations to make, but they should only take a few hours. After that, we can leave." 

* * *

The first tedious part was recreating the crescent design that would allow us to exit her world's Darkness Beyond Time—chances were that I would be able to retrieve the one I had left in the broken future-fragment where I had found this other Schala, but there was no sense in taking chances. Sending a note to Gil telling him that he had just inherited the contents of my vault, and another to Lucca telling her that I was going away and not coming back, took almost no time at all. I considered, then discarded, the idea of destroying some of my research notes: the world was unlikely to ever produce another shadow-element strong enough to make use of what I had written. 

The second tedious part, then, was dealing with the contents of the sealed section of the armoury, particularly the black cylinders. Disassembling the spells on them took hours of slow, cautious work, but I didn't dare leave them behind. By the time I was done, the effort had overloaded my personal grooming spells to the point where I was sweating heavily. 

I leaned back against the wall of the armoury and cast the last cylinder aside, shivering slightly as moisture dried on my skin. Schala still had my cape . . . and with it, my supply of ether. However, one of the few useful things I had done over the course of the past three years was scavenge a Recovery Spring from the remains of Enhasa and build the slab of stone on which it rested into the floor of my workroom. Even without the Sun Stone or the Mammon Machine to power it, it could still gather enough of a charge for very occasional use. And my workroom was, in any case, the easiest place from which to depart to perform what would likely turn out to be my last significant action in this world. 

I might feel no guilt at leaving Gil and Lucca with no more than a note, but Schala—this world's Schala—was different. I had to say good-bye to my sister in person. 

It was day in El Nido now—mid-afternoon, to be exact—and as I emerged from my teleport, the villagers of Arni were . . . clustered around a sleek metal device, likely some sort of flying machine, sitting in the middle of the village? _Why would—_

"About time you got here!" 

My head whipped around. _Lucca?!_

Indeed, Lucca. And Gil. And Schala and Serge, their arms twined together. 

"Did you truly think that we would be content with these?" My ex-apprentice held up a piece of paper by its corner, handling it as though it were contaminated with something unpleasant. 

"Would you prefer that I had left without telling you anything at all?" I snapped. 

"No—" 

"Then I don't see what you have to complain about." 

"Whoa, you two." Lucca seemed on the verge of laughter. "Stop flexing your muscles at each other for a moment. Janus, I know you don't have much of a grasp of this 'friendship' thing, but it's always better to say good-bye in person, okay?" 

I gave her a cold glare, but she just went on smiling— having known me as long and as well as she had, I suppose she was immune. And in the end, I had to look away. 

"I hadn't thought it would matter so much to you," I said. 

The purple-haired scientist snorted. "Are you kidding me? Reality check here: I've known you for _how_ many years? Fought beside you _how_ often? You're my friend—one of the closest friends I have left. Even if you are prickly as hell. And if they could be here, Crono and Marle would say the same. Anyway, here. Going-away present." 

Bemused, I let her deposit the sleek little disc of metal and glass in my hand. Numbers glittered faintly on its surface. 

"You can think of it as a sort of cross between a clock and a time-sextant," Lucca explained. "I've noticed that telling time is just about the only thing that you can't use magic to do for you—that, and figuring out what time you've landed in if that time-travel spell of yours screws up somehow. This will do both. It keeps track of timezones, too." 

Lacking pockets without my cape, I silently tucked the device into my left glove, resisting the temptation to tell her that it wasn't _entirely_ true that magic couldn't be used to tell time. Lucca grinned and winked at me. 

Then Gil coughed and held something out to me: a little ball of lavender-silver fur that yawned, blinked wide green eyes at me, and then launched itself at my torso with a powerful spring of its hind legs. My startlement didn't prevent me from bringing a hand up to cradle the kitten, who had hooked his claws into my armour and was purring up a storm. 

"I suspect I had rather not know where he came from," I told Gil dryly. 

"About a dozen generations of breeding," Lucca said. "Alfador was pretty active when you weren't around. We've got purple cats all over Truce these days." 

Gil coughed. "In any case, this little one seems to have inherited his many-times-great-grandfather's affinity for shadow-elements, and I thought you and he would do well together." 

There was a lot being left unspoken there, I suspected—Gil's mixture of human and feline instincts had to have left him torn between the life he had chosen for himself, and the desire to come with me. The kitten was, in a sense, his surrogate, or Alfador's. 

"He is weaned, of course," my ex-apprentice added. "And litter-trained." 

Lucca wrinkled her nose. "Too much information, Gil." There was white threaded through her purple hair where it poked out from under her helmet—why had it taken me so long to notice that? It was an ugly reminder that we would soon have parted ways even had I remained in this world. 

I turned away from the two of them, and found myself facing my sister, who slid her arm free of her husband's and came forward to meet me. 

"I don't have anything for you," she said. "Sorry." 

"I don't need some trinket to remember you by," I replied. "It would be impossible for me ever to forget you." 

She smiled. "I know. It just makes me feel a little . . . inadequate, that's all." 

"Inadequate? _You?_ " 

Her smile turned sad. "I'm only human, Janus, not the near-goddess you seem to have built me up into while we were separated. You need to remember that. My . . . twin . . . She's just human too. Don't frighten her by trying to treat her like something more." 

"I would never hurt her—or you," I said softly. 

"I know," came the equally soft reply. "And do you have any idea how terrifying it is, that someone would sacrifice himself just to spare me pain? I know you don't really value your life, but _I_ do—and she will too, once she gets to know you. Your death would hurt me. It would also hurt her. So try to look after yourself, all right? One last request from your selfish sister. And yes, I can be selfish. And stubborn. And steal all the blankets off the bed in the middle of the night—just ask Serge!" 

I didn't bother even glancing at her husband. Instead I said, "One last request from your selfish brother, then: don't tell my nephew—or niece, whichever it turns out to be—too much about me. If he were to get the wrong idea . . . I don't know if this world would survive another Magus." 

My sister gave me a lopsided grin, and said, in Kid's accent, "Poor little bugger's goin' to have enough to live down to without yer help!" 

Serge snorted, and Lucca hid her mouth with her hand . . . and then I was suddenly enveloped in an awkward embrace that made the kitten squawk and climb further up my armour. 

"I'd say I didn't want you to go, but if I did, you'd be dumb enough to stay, wouldn't you," Schala said. "So . . . go. Do your best to help her. And try to find a little happiness for yourself for once, all right?" 

I brushed a stray lock of hair out of her eyes. "If I can," I said. 

Promising more would have been . . . unsafe. 

I returned to the vaults one last time with a sleeping kitten cradled in the crook of my arm, and the warmth of my sister's touch fading from my body. 

"I suppose I should call you 'Alfador'," I told the cat, "given that I'm likely to make that mistake regardless of what I say your name is." 

That got me a green-eyed wink as one eye opened a hair, then shut itself again. I sighed and stroked the length of the little creature's spine with a finger, eliciting a sleepy purr. 

"A . . . kitten?" 

My head snapped around, even though I knew it was only Schala. She was standing in the doorway between the workroom and the bedroom, with my cape folded over her arm. 

"A Royal Silver," she added, walking toward me. 

"A part-bred," I corrected. 

She stopped in her tracks and looked at me. "You didn't strike me as the sort of man who would know or care very much about small, furry animals." 

"You haven't even known me for a day yet, Princess," I pointed out. "You can hardly be expected to know all my . . . quirks." The kitten was stretching luxuriously, his tiny claws scraping over my skin like the hooks of a burr. I held out my free hand. Schala blinked for a moment, then seemed to realize what I was asking for and handed over my cape, which I swirled into place around my shoulders—there's a trick to doing it one- handed, but it's possible. "This would be as good a time as any to depart, if you're ready." I transferred Lucca's device and the folded sheet of thin felt with the transportation diagram from my glove cuff to my pockets, and then looked at Schala expectantly. 

"Well, it isn't as though I have anything to pack," she said with a smile. "Is there anything that you need me to do?" 

"Unfortunately, the transportation spell I need to use operates only on the caster . . . and what he's carrying." 

Understanding lit her eyes. "Meaning that you're going to have to carry . . . me." 

I nodded. "I apologize if that makes you uncomfortable, but there is no other way." 

"I think I can manage." 

She held out her arms expectantly. I shifted the kitten—Alfador the Younger—to my shoulder, and muttered a strength-enhancing spell before stepping forward to lift her up. 

"Hmm. It's almost as though I can remember this . . . but I guess you would have had to carry me to get me here, too, wouldn't you?" 

I shrugged, took the necessary two steps to my left, and incanted the transportation spell. Light rose around us, and when it was gone again, we were standing in that fragment of Robo's vanished future. 

"This is . . ." 

"A time that will never be, now," I explained tersely. "I'm going to let you down for a moment, but don't go too far— it's possible to fall off the edges of these fragments rather abruptly." 

The kitten batted at my hand as I unstoppered and drank a vial of elixir. At least he showed no interest in going wandering—if he had fallen off the edge of the fragment, I wasn't certain I would have been able to rescue him. 

Schala, meanwhile, had crouched down a few feet away to examine the ground . . . or more accurately, the trail of stirred-up dust and ash along which she had once dragged herself, semiconscious. 

"This is where you found me." It wasn't a question, but I nodded regardless. "Then the portal back to my world should be there—" She nodded in the direction of the far end of her trail. "—and yet I don't sense anything." 

Instead of saying something, I bent down, picked up a pebble, and threw it at the distortion I sensed. 

There was a ripple in the air, and the small stone disappeared. 

"I think we can assume that there is something there," I observed dryly. "However, I can't be certain what we will find on the other side, except that it isn't likely to be anything like this. If no time traveller has ever meddled in your world's history, its Darkness Beyond Time won't have any fragments of sloughed- off futures in it. We could end up falling, if not forever, then until one of us thinks of a way to create a stable surface on which to place the transportation diagram." 

"Is that likely?" 

"No, but we both need to be prepared for the possibility. Are you ready?" 

She nodded and, unexpectedly, offered me her hand. I took it, since it simplified matters a great deal—if we did find only void on the other side of the Angelus Errare, the last thing we needed was to be separated—and, with the kitten riding on my shoulder, strode toward the gateway. 

My foot checked infinitesimally in midair when I was nose-to-nose with the damned thing, but I forced it to continue forward and down into the gateway . . . and felt the surface under my bootsole cut off like a knife. 

"There doesn't appear to be any ground on the other side," I warned Schala. "Be ready." 

Without waiting for an answer, I took another step. It took a great deal of willpower to keep my eyes open. Not unexpectedly, the moment my face passed through, the light cut off like a knife, and the only sound was the kitten's angry hiss. 

I spoke a word and created a globe of faint etheric light. It showed me . . . a great deal of nothing, and my left arm extending back through the gateway. For some reason, I was floating rather than falling . . . because I wasn't yet completely across? Or because this Darkness truly was as empty as I had thought it might be? 

I squeezed Schala's hand, still resting in mine, and a sandaled foot slid through the opening, followed by our linked hands . . . and gravity seized me, pulling me in what would have been an upward direction on the other side of the portal. Schala yelped as my weight dragged her down and through in the instant before I was able to assert my flight spell. That resulted in her dangling at the end of my arm, clinging with both hands, but after a little jockeying around, I was able to arrange things so that we were more or less on a level, with our heads oriented away from gravity's pull, her standing on my feet, and our arms wrapped around each other. 

I just hoped that she couldn't feel the way my body was reacting to that. Even my self-control couldn't seem to do anything about that one damnable bit of instinct . . . I was going to have to create a spell to deal with it instead, I decided. However, it would have to wait until we were out of here. 

"It appears there is something—some fragment of a future—in here with us after all," I said. "I'm going to let us drop. Are you ready?" 

"Yes, but your cat seems a bit traumatized," she said with a smile. She was right—out of the corner of my eye, I could see that the kitten's fur was standing on end and he was baring his teeth at some nonexistent enemy. Fortunately, he'd sunk all four sets of claws firmly into my cape, or I might have lost him in that first, disorienting instant of falling. 

I detached one hand from Schala and reached around to rub under a lavender-silver chin until young Alfador started to look more like a cat and less like a puffball. Only then did I relax the spell that was keeping us where we were and let gravity tug us gently down. 

We might have been slowly falling for ten minutes or so through empty blackness when we finally hit a boundary and entered a fragment. Red sky, no wind . . . I found myself panting for breath even though I could feel the air hissing in and out of my lungs, and choked out a protective spell I normally used underwater to create a bubble around myself. My breathing immediately eased. 

Bad air . . . and we were floating down toward empty terrain composed of drifted sand and bare rock without so much as a hint of water or softening green in any direction . . . _I don't think I want to know how this future would have come about._

"This is . . ." Schala whispered, her arms tightening around me. 

"From the look of it, this future was devoid of life," I said quietly. "Possibly of _any_ life, even that which is normally too small to see. Just as well that it was banished here. This fragment is usable for our purposes, however." 

I pushed us a little to the left, to where a smooth curve of rock rose above the sand. The surface was surprisingly clean— I would have expected there to be at least a little sand to crunch under my boots, even if I couldn't see it. 

Schala released me, stepping back and away to the edge of my bubble. I had half-expected that the kitten would want to explore here, and had a hand up to catch him, but he remained crouched on my shoulder. I was starting to wonder if he would ever, of his own accord, get down . . . but that was a problem for the future. Right now, I was just as happy to have him stay where he was. 

There was no reason to stay in this fragment of wasteland any longer than we had to, so I spread out the crescent symbol and then beckoned to Schala. 

"Do you know the exact day on which you leapt into Belthasar's little . . . toy?" I asked. 

"Near the beginning of the seventh week of autumn," she replied. "I can't be certain of exactly which day—I may have missed one while Dalton had me." 

"Hmph. I would rather not risk the complications that could result if your presence overlaps itself temporally, so I'll aim for the last day of that week, then, and the back gardens of the Palace. Are you ready?" I was growing tired of asking her that, but hopefully this would be the last time. 

"For quite some time now. Please, take me home." 

I lifted her into my arms and spoke, one last time, the spell that would allow us to exit the Darkness. 

The colours of dawn were fading from the sky as we appeared in the back garden of Zeal's royal palace, near the edge of the island, where long streamers of dew-covered ivy crawled up over the back wall before falling away into space. The breeze caught at my hair, and the kitten batted at the straying strands as I put Schala down. He couldn't hear the Black Wind thundering around us, speaking of doom and the imminent death of a world. 

I moved young Alfador from my shoulder to the crook of my elbow before he could transfer his attention to my earrings . . . just in time for Schala to almost crush him with an impulsive hug. 

"We really are back . . . Oh, thank you, Janus!" 

The kitten meowed pitifully, and Schala instantly let me go. Her face, I noted, was distinctly flushed. I wouldn't have expected her to be so embarrassed . . . but then, she _was_ only seventeen. It was difficult to remember that when part of me would always see her as older than I. 

"Princess Schala!" 

I took a step forward to place myself protectively between her and the voice, but it was only the elderly wind- element who was in charge of tending the Palace gardens. I hadn't encountered him during my time as the Prophet, and had almost forgotten he had ever existed. 

"Princess, you're safe! Oh, thank the Flame!" 

"I'm sorry if I worried you, Gerro." It was, I reflected, just like Schala to know the names of even the most unimportant people. "And Janus, you don't need to be so protective. The Palace is safe. They don't dare do anything overtly here." 

"Yet," I said flatly. 

"While my father is alive," she said gently. "We should go inside. I doubt Gerro is the only person who's been worrying about me." 

"Just a moment." I bent down and set young Alfador on the ground. "Time for you to use those paws of yours for something other than holding on," I told him, and was rewarded with an inscrutable green-eyed look. But he trotted at my heels as we set off down the white stone pathway. 

By the time we reached the door, word had somehow already gotten out that Schala was back—I suspected that the gardener must have had a communication talisman which he had been using for all it was worth. There were a dozen or more people waiting for us inside what was normally an inconspicuous rear entrance to the building. Most were servants, but looming behind them . . . 

I was momentarily surprised to note that this world's Dalton still had both eyes . . . but of course, the Dalton from my world had lost his eye after the two histories diverged. Schala noticed him a moment after I did, and shuddered, drawing closer to my side. I draped my arm over her shoulders—a bit presumptuous, perhaps, but she didn't object—and gave the human cockroach a cold glare to which he seemed largely oblivious. 

I was surprised that he had had the gall to return to court . . . or perhaps not. Belthasar might have managed to prepare some kind of story that he thought even the king would buy. But it was, I decided, of little overall consequence in the scheme of things. In three or four days, I would know enough about how this court differed from the one I remembered to be able to quietly kill Dalton off and frame Belthasar for the murder. Or possibly vice-versa—it was premature to attempt to make a decision on that now. 

I steered Schala past Dalton and on into the multi- level confusion that was the Great Hall of the Palace. I'd sometimes wondered, as a child, what mad architect had designed the place. I managed to get us as far as the Recovery Spring on the second level—I suspected I might end up needing every drop of elixir in my possession by the time this was over, so I wasn't about to waste any—before someone else appeared whom we didn't dare ignore. 

"Your Highness!" This world's Melchior didn't wear those damnable dark glasses, so I was able to tell when he first came close enough to observe my aura by the way his eyes widened. "Princess, who is this . . . gentleman?" 

Schala smiled. "His name is Janus, and I would be dead now if he hadn't rescued me. Janus, this is Melchior, Zeal's Guru of Life." 

Melchior offered me a cautious bow, which I returned. "My apologies," the old man said. "I thought I knew every mage in Zeal who rated above a nine on the Kevirian Scale, but I was apparently mistaken." 

"Technically not, since the Kevirian tests for shadow- users end at the fifth level," I said dryly. "In any case, I have not lived on the floating islands for many years—I prefer to do my research in a level of solitude that is impossible to obtain here, and so chose to make my home on the surface. I would not have come here now if I had not promised Princess Schala my assistance." 

There was a brief silence, then Schala asked, "Melchior, is my father . . . all right?" 

The Guru frowned. "Well, he isn't ill or injured, but he hasn't left the Shrine of the Flame for nearly three days now— not even to eat or sleep. Many of us are . . . worried." 

Three days . . . It could have been just a coincidence, but given the five-day Zealish week, that meant that the king's vigil had started roughly when Schala had vanished from this world's contiguous timeline . . . I wondered if she realized that. 

"I'll speak to him," Schala promised. "How long has Dalton been back here?" 

"Two days now." Then the old man's eyes widened. "Wait, Princess, surely you don't mean that he—" 

"He was responsible for this," Schala said evenly, holding up her splinted hand. "Would you please look at it? I have no experience in dealing with broken bones, and I'm afraid that I wouldn't be able to heal everything properly straight." 

I took a half-step back as the old man bustled forward, so that he wouldn't be forced to get too close to me . . . or I to him, I suppose. 

Something tugged at the hem of my cloak, and I looked down to find young Alfador on his way up. Giving in to the inevitable, I bent down and scooped him back into my arms. 

"You aren't going to let me be for an instant, are you?" I asked him softly in the language of the sixth century, and received a green-eyed blink and a purr. 

"These seem to have been correctly set," Melchior said, his attention on Schala's hand, "so this should only take a moment or two." He murmured a healing spell, and I saw her face tighten, then relax in genuine relief. "Try not to use the hand too much for the rest of today," the Guru added as he began to remove the splints. 

"I understand. Thank you, Melchior." Schala flexed her fingers slowly. 

"Princess . . . what do you wish done about Dalton?" 

"Nothing for now," I answered before she could. "His co-conspirators will have supplied him with some excuse that will permit him to avoid testifying under truthspell, and without that we have no way of proving that he was involved. For the time being, I prefer that he stay in the open, where I can keep an eye on him." 

But Melchior kept looking expectantly at the Princess until she said, "Melchior, I would appreciate it if you were to treat Janus' orders as my own. I trust his judgement." 

That was . . . as much of a surprise to me as it was to the old man, truth be told. My sister had every reason to trust me, but this near-total stranger . . . 

"Very well." But the old man's gaze suggested that he was going to be keeping as close an eye on me as I was on Dalton. 

The Shrine of the Frozen Flame still occupied, in this universe, the space that had been transformed into the Hall of the Mammon Machine in my own Zeal. It felt a bit odd, seeing the huge room almost empty. Dim etheric light made the corners shadowy and gave the white marble an unpleasant lurid greenish tint. At the far end of the room, the Frozen Flame glared balefully at us from its cube-shaped golden cage. And in front of it knelt Marus, King of Zeal, with his back to the doorway. 

If he had been facing us, I suspect I would have frozen before I had properly entered the room. How many years had it been? My last memory of him was actually not unlike this—his loosely braided dark violet hair hanging straight down his back as he conferred with Dalton and the rest of his escort from his seat on the edge of my bed . . . _No._ I flexed my fingers, feeling the pressure of the signet ring under my glove. No. This was not my father, but merely a man who happened to look like him. 

And less like him than I might have expected, truth be told. As we reached his side, I realized that this Marus Zeal looked thin and drawn, even haggard—not like the warm, confident man I remembered, the man who had always somehow managed to arrange his busy day so that he could spend at least a scrap or two of time with his sickly son. His mouth was moving soundlessly, as though reciting a prayer, and there were tendrils of power stretching from him to the Frozen Flame, effectively locking them together. 

Schala immediately went over and shook him by the shoulder. "Father!" 

The king gave no sign that he heard her. 

"Father, I'm back. Please . . ." 

Still nothing . . . but the energies binding him to the Flame seemed to have thickened. 

Muttering the vague outline of a spell through gritted teeth, I lashed out with my power and interrupted the flow of energies between the king and Lavos' little nightmare. 

The reaction was immediate . . . but not exactly as desired. Having been broken away from the Flame, the king collapsed bonelessly to the marble floor. Melchior was instantly at his side. When Schala would have joined him, I grabbed her arm, restraining her. 

"Best that we don't get in his way," I said in response to her almost Kid-like glare. 

And so we both waited tensely until Melchior sat back on his heels. "He was here too long again. I've dealt with the dehydration as best I can, but the best cure for exhaustion is to let him sleep. I'll take him back to his rooms." 

"Wait a moment," I said sharply. "I don't remember the Flame being this hard on its Arbiters. Has he been in communion with it for long periods often lately?" 

"The Flame seems to be getting more and more restless as disaster approaches us," the Guru said grimly. "However, that is all his Majesty will say of the matter." 

"I have made several attempts to convince Father to step down as Arbiter," Schala added. "He refuses to listen, saying that he doesn't want to impose such a burden on me, as I am the most likely successor." 

I scowled. "On one level, the most intelligent thing to do would be to destroy the damned thing, but I don't particularly want to go through that again, and there would probably be riots when everyone found out. Not to mention that it might draw Lavos' attention . . . I need to think about this." 

" _Again?_ Then in your world—" Schala choked off the words before she could finish the question, but I nodded anyway. 

"Let us say that the selection of an Arbiter is no longer an issue there," I said. 

Melchior was staring at me with narrowed eyes. "Who are you really?" he asked. 

"I will explain myself to the king when he is recovered," I said coldly. "He will be the one to decide what, if anything, you need to know." 

"Janus . . ." Schala began, but again didn't finish. 

"He's a shadow-element, Princess," Melchior said unexpectedly. "Kindness isn't in their nature. I wasn't offended, and you should not be either. Now, if you have nothing further to say to me, sir Janus, I think it is time that I put his Majesty to bed." The old man muttered a strength spell and lifted the king into his arms, then hesitated, teleportation amulet dangling from his hand. "Look after our princess," he ordered me, then stroked the talisman with his thumb and vanished before I could make a reply. 

I muttered a curse and took a step toward the cube/altar where the Flame hung suspended, wondering if I could set some kind of spell on the golden metal to prevent the damnable thing's influence from half-killing its Arbiters in future, but before I could get any closer, young Alfador puffed up like a hedgehog, hissing and spitting at the Flame. I swore again and stepped back, stroking the kitten until he calmed. 

"I don't think I've ever seen any of the palace cats enter this room," Schala observed. 

"Cats often have very good instincts," I said, turning to face her. "You're troubled," I added, noting her expression. "What is it?" 

"I . . . It's only . . ." A long hesitation. Then, "What can you tell me about the Flame, Janus?" 

I sighed. "The Frozen Flame is a piece of Dreamstone, perhaps the largest such on record. It contains the dream of an extraterrestrial being named Lavos, which is ultimately not well-disposed toward humanity . . . or anything else native to this world, for that matter. In my world, it was Lavos and the Flame that were the root cause of Zeal's destruction." 

"And you destroyed it." 

"Too late to do any good, but yes." Although technically the Dreamstone itself still existed—it was merely the dream inside it that I had snuffed out. "I don't think that this world's Flame constitutes an immediate danger, but it will need to be watched to make certain that it doesn't add to your other problems. It is capable of seducing the weak-minded to act on its behalf. I wouldn't be surprised to discover that Dalton was already enthralled by it, although he might also just be demonstrating his normal self-serving behaviour." 

"What about Belthasar?" 

Young Alfador pounced on my gloved hand from the crook of my arm, and I wrestled with him absently as I replied. "I don't know. There was a time when I would have thought him too stable and rational for the Flame to gain much of a hold on his mind. Then I discovered that that rationality itself was a potential weakness that the Flame could attack . . . Without meeting him and speaking to him, there is no way for me to tell. But I'm more worried about your father. The Flame may be actively eating away at his mind." 

Schala visibly shuddered. "If that's true, then we have to do something . . . but . . ." 

"Keeping him away from the Flame for a few days may allow him to recover," I said. "I can probably put a seal on the room that will hold for that long even against attempts to force it . . . but I will need your permission." Although strictly speaking, _need_ was an exaggeration. Her support would make matters easier, however. 

"My . . . permission?" 

"I have no official standing in this Zeal, and therefore no authority," I pointed out. "If I bar access to the Shrine of the Flame, I will be in several kinds of trouble fairly quickly. You, on the other hand, are Zeal's Princess. With your father temporarily incapacitated, it could even be argued that you are his regent. If you choose to seal this place . . . I won't say that no one will argue, but chances are that at least some of the court will support you." 

She had gone white. "I . . ." 

"Schala, I don't want to pressure you, but you must make a decision," I said, forcing myself to keep my voice soft. 

If my sister, in the long ago days of my childhood, had possessed a flaw, it was that she was unwilling to exert her power—political or magical—for fear of harming or angering someone. I hadn't been able to see it then, of course, but my return to Zeal as the Prophet had made the pattern clear. By the time she had wed Serge, my Schala had been free of it . . . but it had taken a trip through hell for her finally to find her strength and courage. Hopefully I would be able to spare the Schala of this universe that. 

A weak smile. "Now you sound like Father. I . . ." She took a deep breath, and squared her shoulders. "Sir Janus, I would like you to seal the Shrine of the Flame against all access for the next . . . will your seal last for a week?" 

"It should." I offered her a courtier's deep bow, gritting my teeth as the kitten dug his claws into my arm. "If you would care to come with me, Princess?" 

"'Schala,'" she corrected, and this time, her smile was warm and genuine. "You've already used it once." 

"Schala, then. I don't want to mistakenly seal you inside." 

There were four cats waiting for us outside the door, all full-grown Royal Silvers. I put young Alfador down among them, and all five cats rubbed themselves against me as I crouched down and drew a quick design, in charcoal, across the threshold of the Shrine of the Flame. 

Once I was satisfied with the notation, I straightened up again and pulled the door shut, noticing as I did so that I was acquiring a human, as well as a feline, audience: there were hundreds of Enlightened living in the palace at any given time, and any unusual activity was bound to attract attention. _Let them watch, then._

I closed my eyes, taking a moment to make certain that the spell I wanted to use was clear in my mind—it wasn't one that I used all that often, and this was not the time to make a mistake and have to start over. Then, pressing the palms of my hands against the door, I spoke the spell. 

Energies surged and rippled outward through the walls—the door was the focal point, but I fully intended to stop anyone from getting into the Shrine by any means at all, including teleportation. I just hoped that I had correctly described the dimensions of the room in the spell, or there might be . . . undesired consequences. 

Then the wave of power rippled back and the spell stabilized, permitting me to remove my hands from the door, which now possessed a faint, ominous violet glow. 

"If it isn't breached, it should dissipate on its own in six or seven days," I told Schala, ignoring our audience. "Now, with your permission, there is something else I would like to do . . ." 

* * *

The Sun Stone truly was dying. 

Even Schala's help had not been able to get me permission to pass through the containment fields surrounding the device that harnessed and projected the Stone's power, but its erratic flicker was visible from where I stood, ten feet away. 

Of course it could, in theory, be revived. All I had to do was transport it back in time some sixty-five million years to let it recharge. Choreograph the matter correctly, and there would be at most a few seconds' interruption to Zeal's power supply, but . . . 

Ah, yes. "But". In a few thousand years, there would be Lavos to deal with, and a complacent Zeal and a downtrodden race of Earthbound were not likely to produce a group of heroes able to destroy that damnable creature. If I remained here, and managed to live so long, I would probably end up fighting it alone, and even my knowledge of its weaknesses would not guarantee success. 

It wasn't the Sun Stone's power that would save this world. I still wasn't entirely certain what would, but it was clear that I needed some other, better plan than just restoring the status quo. 

I turned away from the Sun Stone and, ignoring the two men set to guard the innermost chamber of the facility from anyone who might consider endangering it, began the long walk down the teleport-warded spiral corridor/staircase that led to the outside. 

I was nearly back at the massive doors leading out of the building when I sensed a powerful aura. A strong lightning- user was just out of view along the curve of the spiral, and I didn't much like what I was sensing from him. I hesitated only a moment, but when I moved forward again, my hand was poised to pull my scythe from its dimensional pocket. 

And so, when I emerged from the spiral corridor into the large room serving the building as an entryway, I was not in the least surprised to find Belthasar there waiting for me. 

I stopped in the mouth of the hallway, hand still cautiously poised, to study the old man. He wasn't much different from his incarnation in the world of my birth—he even wore the same ridiculous hat—but while I have never claimed to be an expert on auras, there was something about the way his swirled that disturbed me. 

He was staring quite openly back at me, of course, so I wasn't surprised when he finally broke the silence to say, "So you are Princess Schala's new . . ." He visibly struggled for a word, and eventually came up with, " . . . partisan." 

"And you are her enemy," I replied evenly. 

"That is . . . a rather harsh assessment. I only wish to have the princess convince her father that—" 

"—giving Zeal over to Lavos is the correct thing to do? I will destroy the Frozen Flame myself before I permit that to happen," I said flatly. Then a thought crossed my mind, and I offered him a fang-baring smile. "For that matter, it occurs to me that eliminating you now would solve a number of problems. I should thank you for approaching me in a place with no witnesses. If I drop your body off the edge of the island, there will be no way to tell what killed you by the time you reach the ground below. Without you, your little conspiracy will disintegrate: Dalton isn't bright enough to run it." 

"W-what?!" Belthasar took a step back. "You can't possibly mean to—" 

I let my smile fade. I hadn't been entirely serious from the first—not when I knew that Schala wouldn't approve. Even though this Schala wasn't the sister I remembered, I still didn't want to hurt her unnecessarily. 

"Not this time," I said. "However, it _is_ something I intend to keep in mind for the future. As far as I am concerned, you are a traitor to Zeal and have already forfeited your life, and it wouldn't particularly disturb me to have more blood on my hands. You might consider whatever you came here to say to me in light of that." 

The old man tilted his head. "It appears that she was correct about you after all: you _are_ high-handed, arrogant, and stubborn, not to mention possessed of a disturbing sense of humour. I am beginning to think that I should listen to her more carefully in the future." 

Who was he talking about? Not Schala, I was fairly certain: my sister would never have described me in those terms, and this world's Schala had no idea what my sense of humour might or might not be like. Then . . . _was_ there a "me" in this world, or was "she" someone else who had come here from my world? 

"Who is 'she'?" After considering my options, I decided to ask the obvious question. Admitting that I didn't know whom he was referring to would hurt me very little, and if he answered . . . 

"As you said, 'not this time'." Belthasar was smiling, but it looked forced. "If we all continue along our chosen paths, I am certain that you will meet her in due course." 

I gave him a cold look. "Enough of this. If your sole purpose here is to waste my time, I will be leaving." A dozen long strides ate up the distance between the mouth of the corridor and his position near the main doors. In an act of pure physical dominance, I shouldered him to one side before stepping out into the sunlight and greenery on the surface of the island. 

Hours later, I was regrettably forced to admit that Belthasar had accomplished one more thing with his little . . . greeting: he had distracted me from what I was supposed to be doing. The realization struck while I was seated at a table in the Palace library, strewn with documents covering recent history, with no less than five cats either perched on book piles or positioned underfoot. 

I had determined one thing for certain: this universe had never produced a Janus Zeal. My otherself had died before he was born, and killed his mother as well—having sleep-spelled herself for a more restful night, she hadn't awakened when the miscarriage had taken place, and had bled to death. So Belthasar's "she", whoever she was, could not have gained her knowledge of me by studying a version of me from this universe— 

"Recent history?" Schala asked softly from behind me. "Are you trying to figure out when this world's past diverged from yours?" 

"I think it's a lost cause," I admitted as I turned my chair to face her, unwilling to tell her about Belthasar. "I knew before sitting down here that it had to be after you were born, but no later than your mother's death, and nothing here has been able to narrow it down any more. But what brings you here, Princess?" 

"It's 'Schala', remember?" She had, I noted, exchanged the white dress for a proper set of state robes and had her hair styled while I was away from the Palace, but I doubted she had either eaten or rested. 

"Schala," I repeated obediently, absently stroking a cat who butted his head against my hand. 

"Every time I see you, you have more cats following you around," she said with a smile. 

"I beg to differ: it's always the same five. Although I admit that I never used to have this problem in the old days. Presumably, whatever quirk makes some cats treat shadow- elemental energy like catnip is more common here." 

"I think it's cute . . . and useful. You look a lot less threatening with four cats and a kitten clustered around your feet." 

"Sometimes looking threatening can be useful as well," I said quietly. "You still haven't told me why you're here. If you were looking for a place to hide from someone, I suggest we duck further back among the shelves." 

"Actually, I came because I was hoping to monopolize a bit of your time. I . . . Father was supposed to hold an Open Court today. Obviously that isn't possible now, but I have to at least explain why—I mean, some of those people have come from as far away as Enhasa!—and I'd like you to be there with me when I do. I think your presence might keep things . . . calmer . . . than they would be otherwise." 

"In other words, it would be useful for you to be able to terrify people with my aura," I said, and almost laughed when she flushed slightly. "Very well," I said more soberly. "Whatever you need. I promised that I would help you and protect you." 

Some tension went out of her. " . . . Thank you." 

I pushed my chair back from the table and stood. "Shall we go, then?" 

Melchior was waiting for us—or at least for Schala—in the throne room, which we entered through the back door behind the throne itself. His eyebrows rose a bit when he saw me with Schala, but he said nothing, instead waiting in silence as the Princess of Zeal took her place on a chair that had been set up on the lowest level of the dais supporting the throne. I placed myself to her right and behind while Melchior took up station to her left, and then Schala nodded to the Nu at the main doors. 

The throne room wasn't big enough to hold the hundreds of people that wanted to crowd in, but, as I remembered, that was typical, and the ones who were there merely to spectate would normally leave as soon as they realized how mind-numbingly boring the proceedings were, making space for the folk who actually had some question or concern to address to the monarch. Of course, things weren't going to work out like that today. 

Schala waited until the visitors had more or less settled in and conversation had died down somewhat before whispering a spell that would make her voice clearly audible to everyone in the room—not a simple amplification spell, but something more subtle. 

"Thank you all for coming here today," she said, and the room went very nearly silent. "However, some unforeseen circumstances have regrettably arisen. His Majesty, King Marus, will be unable to attend this audience session." 

A great deal of murmuring was heard in the audience. Schala again waited until it had quieted before speaking a second time. "I realize that this will cause difficulties for some people, and I am intending to take my father's place as much as I can. I will accept all your questions and concerns myself, answer those within my ability, and direct the king's attention to the rest as soon as he is able to receive them. I apologize for the inconvenience which this will no doubt cause some of you." 

Out of the corner, I saw her bow her head, every line of her body radiating humility, and was a little impressed despite myself. I knew it was all an act, and could myself portray many emotions without feeling them, but humility was one that I had never mastered. 

Or _was_ it an act? For any normal person, it would have had to be, but . . . _Schala . . ._

There was some shuffling of feet from the crowd and more murmured conversation, and then a line of petitioners began to form in the center aisle. 

I only half-listened to what was being said, as I was trying to stay alert for threats, but many, if not most, of the questions had to do with the failure of the Sun Stone and what, if anything, was being done about it. Schala had a rote answer for most of those questions— _we have some time before Zeal will be endangered by this, options are being discussed_ —but to my eye, she never looked very happy when she was saying it. Indeed, she was slowly wilting under the pressure of everyone's attention, and I was just about to suggest that she take a short rest when someone began pushing his way up the aisle. 

Dalton. I could tell it was him before he came clearly into view—he was, after all, more than averagely tall, and his wavy blonde hair was distinctive—and tensed, ready in case he decided to disrupt the proceedings more violently than he already had. He spared me a glance and a smirk when he reached the open area immediately in front of the throne dais, and I returned a cool look that hopefully transmitted all my feelings about the human cockroach. 

What surprised me was the four other, younger men who threaded their way through the crowd to stand behind him. Their robes and strong auras indicated that they weren't military, making me at a loss to explain their presence. 

"Princess, I was wondering if you had had enough time to consider my proposal yet," he said with a smirk, and the only reason he didn't interrupt the petitioner who had been at the head of the line in mid-sentence was that the poor man had ceased speaking the moment that Dalton had begun his disruption. 

"Any of our proposals," corrected one of the young men, and my eyes narrowed slightly. These were Schala's suitors? Or at least, I corrected myself, they were those of Schala's suitors boorish enough to barge in here without following protocol. 

"Gentlemen, this is extremely irregular," Melchior snapped. "Kindly either take your place in the line or wait until this audience has concluded." 

"Be quiet, old man," the human cockroach had the effrontery to say. "Whatever business these . . . people have could not possibly be as important as mine." 

" _Ours_ ," one of the other men corrected again. The quartet were all getting increasingly red in the face, and any of them had enough magic to swat Dalton like a bug. I wondered if he realized that. 

Dalton ignored the interruption. "However, since Princess Schala refuses to answer the marriage proposal I made to her in private, I thought speaking in public this time would speed things up." 

"What we mean," said the appropriately red-haired fire-user who appeared to be the spokesman for Dalton's companions, "is that, with the king ill, it would be reasonable to expect the princess to take measures to secure the succession . . ." 

As an attempt at diplomacy, it was too little, too late, although I was certain that Schala appreciated the gesture. The crowd was whispering about _marriage_ and related terms. Melchior looked as though someone had just dropped the roof on his head, and Schala . . . 

I had only once seen such a lost look on her face before, when our mother had commanded her to amplify the power of the Mammon Machine at the Ocean Palace— _Don't confuse the two of them,_ I reminded myself, but it was difficult to maintain the necessary separation when I saw that expression. And I could see it clearly, because she had turned away from Dalton and his companions, and, after a quick glance at Melchior, focussed almost desperately on me. I immediately put my hand on her shoulder and squeezed in gently in an attempt at reassurance. However, I was more surprised than gratified when her expression suddenly shifted from horror to hope . . . mixed with a hint of impish amusement that fit better with Gil's descriptions of Kid's behaviour than with what I knew of my sister. 

She reached up and covered my hand with her own before turning back to once more face the crowd . . . and her suitors. 

"If I hesitated to answer," Schala said, "it was because I had hoped that we would soon be able to make everything clear. Gentlemen, I regret, but I have chosen a consort, and so am not eligible for marriage at this time." 

Under other circumstances, I might have considered applauding. Consortship was a form of fixed-term trial marriage, another Zealish custom dating back to the days of breeding for magic. If we could find someone to play the part of her consort, Schala would be immune to marriage proposals for roughly a year. 

"A consort . . . You don't mean that _freak_ standing beside you?!" Dalton glared at me as though trying to bore holes through my head. I smirked lazily back before the content of his question penetrated. _Damn you for giving her ideas, you fool._

"Who else _would_ I mean? In this time of trial, Zeal needs leaders with both intelligence and magical strength . . . and you must admit that Janus possesses far more magic than you do." 

I kept my face emotionless, but inwardly my feelings were madly raging. I had promised her my support and protection, but she could not have chosen a form of imposture more difficult for me to endure . . . but I also would not withdraw my support of her just in order to spare myself pain. 

"We had hoped to speak of this privately to the king before making a public announcement," I said, my voice harsh in the sudden silence filling the room. "However, it would seem that we no longer have that option," I added, skewering Dalton with a cold glare. 

"I trust that answers your question, Sir Dalton." Schala's voice was as frosty as it ever got—which wasn't very, by my standards, but at least she seemed to be trying. 

But it was the red-head who said, "You're taking a _construct_ as your consort? With all due respect, your Highness, I'm fairly sure that isn't legal." 

Schala gave me a quick, sidelong glance, but it was Melchior who spoke up. "In fact, the law places few restrictions on a consort-pairing, and 'human' is not one of them. The princess may legally choose anyone of the opposite gender who is possessed of magic." 

"And in any case," I added, "I am not a construct. My appearance is the result of a magical accident." Deciding to move things along, I followed that up with, "There are other people here who have been waiting some considerable time for an audience. If you have nothing further to say, I suggest that you remove yourself before I decide to . . . assist . . . you." 

Even the human cockroach wasn't stupid enough to be blind to the menace in that. Dalton bowed briefly in our direction, then scuttled quickly out of the room, still muttering to himself. The redhead gave me one last lingering look before gathering up his silent three-man entourage and following. 

Schala looked up at me, and I let my expression soften just a bit, hoping that she would notice. Then I lifted my hand from her shoulder and bent to deal with the set of kitten-claws that were now halfway up my trouser leg. By the time I had young Alfador in the crook of my arm where he couldn't do any damage, the audience had resumed. 

Three hours later, we finally reached the end of the set of petitioners who were willing to address their concerns to the Princess instead of her father. Schala waited until the Nu had shut the doors again before slumping in her seat and hiding her face in her hands. 

Melchior took a deep breath and opened his mouth, but I caught his eye and shook my head before he could say anything . . . although I must admit that I was half-surprised that he accepted the suggestion. 

After a moment's consideration, I plucked young Alfador from the crook of my arm and deposited him in Schala's lap. She lowered her hands when the kitten began stalking from one side of his new environment to the other. Watching him, her face slowly relaxed until she was even faintly smiling. 

Then she looked up at me, and her smile disappeared. "Janus, I'm sorry for using you like that, but it was the only thing I could think of." 

"No need to apologize," I told her. "I promised you my help, and I meant it. However, given that the news has probably spread to the far corners of Zeal already, we will have to make this at least _look_ real. Which means I'm going to have to dress the part, I suppose," I added with a grimace. Court robes might be pretty, but if I got into a physical fight, they would also be in the way. 

"We'll also have to arrange appropriate quarters," Melchior said, looking even more sour than I must have. 

"The room next to mine is empty," Schala said. "That would be both appropriate and convenient, I think." 

Melchior bowed, looking no happier. "I'll have it seen to, your Highness." He stepped down from the dais, then abruptly turned to face me. "And you, Janus— _Lord_ Janus, I suppose it will have to be from now on—if you dare hurt her—" 

"That," I said, meeting his eyes, "is the one thing that I will _not_ do." 

The old man's eyebrows rose. "Perhaps you won't, at that," he said, with something that might almost have been respect. "Very well. I hope you'll both excuse me." 

Schala stirred as one of the Nu opened the main door a fraction to let the Guru out. "Everything has been so hectic that I haven't had a chance to talk to you about the Sun Stone yet," she said. 

"Not here, Schala." I glanced pointedly at the Nu. 

"Janus, the Nu are _constructs_. Their programming won't allow them to repeat private conversations." 

"They're self-willed, and I don't trust them," I said flatly. "I can think of half-a-dozen ways I could get information that its masters never wanted me to have out of a cooperative Nu, _without_ breaching its programming. You just have to know what questions to ask, and what the limits placed on its responses are. And I don't think there's any question of Belthasar not knowing the second—or being able to derive at least some of the first. The Belthasar I remember was in fact rather fond of Nu, and might easily think it was a good idea to use one as a spy." 

"Then . . . Um. My room is probably secure—I mean, it's checked regularly for listening devices, and we should at least have some warning before anyone tries to enter . . ." 

"It should do for the present . . . especially since discussing politics would be the last thing most people would expect you to be doing alone in your room with a new consort," I said dryly. 

She blushed bright red, and it occurred to me suddenly that I didn't know whether she was still a virgin or not. Zealish custom had never placed any particular value on chastity, but I could see Schala the idealist wanting to wait until she was in love . . . I didn't even know how my sister had felt about the matter, since it wasn't the sort of thing most young women discussed with their younger brothers. 

"People are going to say far worse than that about us," I warned her now. "You will need to accustom yourself to the fact that there is going to be some rather impolite speculation, especially since I am a total unknown here. Protecting you from gossip is beyond even my abilities, I'm afraid." 

She smiled. "You have a high opinion of yourself, sir." 

"Only in some matters," I said, and offered her my hand. "Melchior is probably beginning to wonder what happened to us." 

She wrapped her fingers around my glove and let me pull her to her feet, where she swayed slightly until the stiffness of sitting for more than four hours in the same position wore off. 

We exited the throne room via the back door and used the passageway there to slip into the royal quarters without entering the main hall. Servants were parading in and out of the room beside Schala's—the one that had been my room during my early childhood, and was apparently destined to be so again—but they conspicuously ignored us as we passed. 

Inside Schala's room, everything was as I remembered it . . . almost. The handful of awkward childish gifts I had long ago made to my sister, prominently displayed in her room, were naturally missing here. And I had never seen more than one cat in her room before. 

Schala made as though to sit on the bed, then blushed and chose a stool instead. I took up a position against the wall, close enough to her that I would be able to keep my voice relatively low, but far enough away that I wasn't infringing on her personal space. 

"The Sun Stone is in worse shape than I thought," I admitted quietly. "I would say that only a miracle will permit it to last another six months." 

Schala went white, and her aura stuttered and swirled. "Six months . . . By the Flame . . ." Then she winced, and raised both hands to cover her mouth. 

I held up my hand. "Calm yourself. If need be, I know of a method by which it could be restored . . . but I question whether that restoration would be wise." 

"I know that having a stable Sun Stone wouldn't solve all our problems," Schala said, "but it would give us time to work on the rest. I can't understand why you're hesitating. I'll talk to my father, and—" 

"Not yet," I interrupted, then found myself fumbling for words—what I had to express was a brutal truth, but for her, I instinctively wanted to soften it. "Schala, think about what the mere _possibility_ of losing the Sun Stone did to this place. One faction advising murder, one the use of energy from a source of which it has no understanding, and the best you could come up with was to abandon everything and set human civilization back by thousands of years! Not one person here came up with a viable plan of action—that required me, an outsider—and none of you could agree even on one of the poor plans that you had. My own Zeal may have made the wrong decision about this, but at least we _made_ a choice! At that rate, when the power behind the Frozen Flame reveals itself, there will be no one capable of fighting it, and this entire world will be destroyed. Until we can find a way to excise the rot, there is no point in restoring the Sun Stone." 

A shudder ran through her. "So you are saying that, in the meanwhile, you are going to leave everyone in terror, not knowing what the next morning will bring—" 

"What do you expect me to do?" I snapped, patience eroded to the point where I couldn't help myself. "Tell them, 'I could save you, but I won't'? All that would accomplish would be getting the entire population of the floating islands to turn on me, and then you really would be in trouble." _What am I doing? Why am I so angry at her?_

_I think . . . the real problem is that she isn't_ my _Schala._ A few brief hours of conversation on a beach should not so deeply have transformed my perception of her, but they had. I was looking for my sister's quiet wisdom inside this girl, ignoring the fact that she had never experienced the hellish conditions necessary for its genesis. I might not agree with all the choices my sister had made, but at least she had cast aside the willful blindness that this girl showed . . . _I need to teach her._ A hilarious idea in its way, but it appeared that there was no one else. 

"It's like slapping the hand of a young child away from a flame," I said slowly. "Sometimes it's necessary to cause a small pain to prevent a greater." 

"Now you sound like my father again," Schala said. "It's strange, you know—how alike you and he are in some ways." 

I couldn't help it—I had to turn my head away. "Coincidence is a strange thing," I said. 

"Coincidence wouldn't make your aura darken that way. It means something to you, that resemblance—you knew the King Marus from your own world, didn't you?" She paused to allow me to reply, but I made none. "Was he . . . your friend?" 

"It makes no difference," I said firmly. "The past is the past, Schala. I have no intention of permitting it to . . . taint . . . my actions here." Except, of course, that I already had. 

"Janus, what was it that hurt you so much?" 

"What do you mean?" I growled at a bookshelf. 

"I can't see what else, other than lingering pain, would make you so unwilling to reach out to anyone." 

I whirled around to face her fully, and, goaded beyond endurance, snapped, "I watched my world die, Princess. _Twice._ I had spent twenty years in hell, plotting vengeance, when Fate handed me an unexpected second chance . . . and all I could do was fail _again!_ I will not lose Zeal a third time. Not even for your sake. Even if the only way is to slap _all_ your hands away from the fire." 

Seething, I strode out of the room, trailing cats who were sensible enough to stay behind me rather than risk the impact of my booted feet. The room next door was now clear of servants, and I stalked inside and bolted the door shut. My eyes raked its generic furnishings, and my hand shot out, almost involuntarily, to strike the wall, marble bruising my knuckles even through my glove. 

What was it inside me that so persistently refused to heal? What was it that I wanted, that I _needed_ , so badly that being reminded of the lack had driven me into such a fit of rage? It had to have a name, but I couldn't find it, not in any of the languages I knew. 

* * *

"It will do, I suppose," I told the palace's resident tailor, but I knew I was still scowling. "You're dismissed," I added, and she gathered up the fabric and cord that she hadn't used, and bowed herself out of the room. 

I shook my head and sat down on the edge of the bed to begin bespelling my new clothes without stripping them off— the tailor had naturally offered to do that for me, but I had refused. Perhaps I was merely being paranoid, but I didn't want to be carrying someone else's spells around just now. 

_Court robes,_ I thought in disgust, smoothing my new skirts around my thighs. Or at least, court _robe_ —instead of a whole new wardrobe, I had ordered the tailor to fit me with a single layer that went over my existing clothing, including the armour vest that my world's Melchior had made for me, and she had been too cowed to argue. So rather than my cape, I now wore a sleek garment made of midnight blue silk, and I had demanded—and gotten—some other changes to the conventional construction as well. The skirts were slit up both sides to allow me some freedom of movement if I needed it, and the full sleeves, rather than being fused into the main body of the robe, were laced into place with silver cord, which would allow them to be removed entirely with a couple of firm pulls in the right places. But I still felt overdressed and irritable. 

Someone knocked on the door. I raised one hand, pointed at the portal, and spelled it open with a flicking movement of my wrist—calling whoever-it-was to come in would have seemed too much like an invitation. 

_Melchior._ There were probably a few people I wanted less to deal with right now, but I couldn't name any of them offhand. Deliberately, I returned to my spellcasting, pretending he wasn't there, although I followed his progress through the room with my ears, listening to the sound of his footfalls as he climbed the stairs from the entrance to the main level. 

"Dressed like that, you look almost civilized," he said as he came to a stop in front of me. 

"I suppose I should arrange to do something barbaric in the near future, then, just so that I don't confuse people too much," I said dryly. "What do you want?" 

"His Majesty is awake. Understandably, he wants to meet his daughter's new consort." 

"You should spell him back to sleep," I said flatly. "He can't be in any condition to carry on a conversation yet." 

Melchior grimaced. "Unfortunately, he's capable of bouncing my spells even when he's half out of his mind with exhaustion. He's promised to go back to sleep if you speak to him." 

"In that case, I suppose we should get this over with." I was amused to see Melchior take a half-step back as I stood up—evidently the way I loomed over him made him uncomfortable. 

The king's quarters were to the left as we exited my room, on the other side of Schala's. The outermost door opened at Melchior's touch, the ancient and powerful wards placed on it sensing that he had every right to be here. I frowned as I realized that, in this Zeal, I was not on the list of people who had open access to the royal chambers. In an emergency, I could probably break the wards, but it would be exhausting. Hopefully, the need would never arise. 

A Lasher and a Thrasher stood guard together at the head of the staircase leading up into the antechamber—like the two smaller rooms adjoining it, the king's suite was mostly on a higher level than its door. They nodded at Melchior as he led the way inside, then eyed me suspiciously, fingering their weapons. I made a show of ignoring them, although, in the shadow of my sleeve, my hand caressed the curve of the steel crescent that hung at my side. 

If something went wrong, I wasn't about to let them take me by surprise. 

The bedroom was at the rear of the suite, as far as possible from the noise and bustle of the palace proper. Melchior, however, stopped in the middle of the antechamber and seemed about to say something, but I didn't give him a chance, instead striding past him to the appropriate inner door, which was ajar. 

The lighting inside was dim, turning King Marus' deep violet hair black. Someone had used pillows to prop him up into a sitting position, but his eyes were closed, and for a moment I thought he had fallen asleep after all. Then he sighed softly, and his eyelids slowly rose. 

"You are the one, I take it," he said, and I froze in place, because the sound of that voice . . . It was as though it polished away the tarnish that the years had left on my memories of being four and five years old. My father's voice . . . my father's face, no longer blended with Caeron's . . . the feel of his long braid and the fine silk of his robes as I clung to him that last day, half out of my mind with fever and begging him not to leave, knowing that the rising sound of the Black Wind meant that something terrible was going to happen . . . 

I forced myself to make the deep, formal bow that protocol dictated was owed to the reigning monarch. 

"Sit down," the king said, making a small gesture in the direction of a chair that had been set by the bedside. "Your name is Janus, I believe?" 

"Yes, your Majesty." 

"You claim no lineage." The clear blue eyes were deeply hooded, and I couldn't read the expression in them. 

"I prefer that what remains of my family not know what has become of me," I said evenly. 

The king's eyes narrowed further. "You expect not to be recognized? And kindly don't try to play me for a fool by telling me that none of your family has ever been at court—you've obviously been trained in protocol." 

It took a considerable effort not to show him my fangs. I was coming to the belated realization that I perhaps hadn't known my father all that well—this cold, shrewd man bore little resemblance to the one I remembered. _We may actually be quite alike . . . I never would have believed it without this._ "From the point of view of those who once knew me, I've been missing and presumed dead since I was a child." It wasn't, I told myself, really a lie—the Janus Zeal of this universe certainly was missing. "Spell-induced mutation has altered both my appearance and the quality of my aura. I would be extremely surprised if my own mother could recognize me, should I happen to meet her." And when I had put that to the test, she hadn't. 

"Hmph. And why should I trust you with my daughter—my only child—when you won't even trust me with your name?" 

"I would lay down my life for Schala's sake," I said fiercely, staring him straight in the eye. "If that isn't enough to convince you, I don't know what would be." 

The king blinked. "Your aura pulses with emotion when you say that . . . It's a truth spoken from the bottom of your soul, isn't it? And in some ways, that makes me trust you even less." He tried to lever himself up into a proper sitting position, but ended up falling back against the pillows instead, apparently lacking the strength. Anger thinned his mouth for a moment before he succeeded in wiping his face clean of expression again. 

"Don't strain yourself," I snapped. "I didn't pry you away from the Frozen Flame so that you could kill yourself trying to get out of bed. If you want me away from Schala—and if you can say so to her face as well as mine—then I'll go. Otherwise, I suggest that you wait until after you're recovered to challenge me." 

Marus actually smiled, although it was thin and rueful. "She must have told you that I can never refuse her anything she truly wants, even if I think it isn't in her best interests." 

"She didn't have to," I said. "Schala wouldn't be the person she is if she wasn't loved by the most important person in her life." 

"Grief," the king murmured, although what he might have meant by it, I couldn't have said. "You are a puzzle, aren't you?" 

"One that you can deal with at your leisure," I said. 

"You sound like you would like to imitate Melchior and tell me to rest, but I am not done with you yet." 

"Then ask your questions," I all but growled. 

"You have quite a temper, don't you? No, don't answer that. I am certain that you have some awareness of the current political situation." 

"The condition of the Sun Stone, you mean." 

"As you say. I am curious to know what you think our best course of action is." 

"Stop relying on the Sun Stone," I said flatly. "It's a single point of failure for Zeal's entire civilization. More than that, it encourages both prejudice against the Earthbound—some of whom are quite able people and would be an asset to Zeal if they were allowed to fully participate in our society—and indolence and weakness on the part of the Enlightened. Restoring it is not the answer. Nor is replacing it. And Schala's proposed solution is even worse." 

"Then . . . ?" 

"I'm working on it." 

"I don't doubt that you are." The king sighed. "Truth be told, your thinking on the matter seems to parallel my own. If you do come up with an idea, please present it to me so that I can consider it." 

"It might be possible to buy a little time by encouraging people to train and use their native elemental powers rather than drawing on the Stone for everything," I said after a moment's hesitation. 

"Interesting. That had never occurred to me. I thank you for the insight." Again, the penetrating gaze of those blue eyes. "So. We have spoken of the state of the kingdom, but not of other matters that lie closer to my heart—and yours as well, I think. How would you describe Schala's position in all this?" 

"Precarious at best," I replied. "Schala has little experience, as yet, with dealing with crises. Her fear of hurting others is paralyzing her. If she were to become queen tomorrow . . . let us say that I would have a difficult time defending her, and would likely have to take actions against her will." 

"And that disturbs you." 

I inclined my head. "I don't like hurting her, but if the choice is between that and a worse hurt . . . I pride myself on being practical about such things." 

"Do you love her?" 

"That would be foolish on my part," I said harshly. "I am, among other things, almost three times her age. She deserves better than a freakish—" 

"I notice that you haven't actually said 'no'." Even though Marus spoke softly, his words somehow cut through mine. 

I gave him a cold look. "My feelings with respect to her are irrelevant. They would be even if they were returned. She is a princess. Even if she hasn't realized it yet, her eventual marriage will be a political matter. I am not a potential suitor, and I have no intention of pressuring her to see me as anything more than a . . . friend, despite my present status with regard to her." 

The slight lack of focus in the king's eyes suggested that he was reading my aura again. It seemed an age before he nodded once, decisively. "I will entrust Schala to your care for the next few days, but if ever she suffers harm at your hands . . ." 

"If I ever truly harm her, I will not deserve to live," I said flatly. "Now, permit me to play Melchior's part for a moment and suggest that you get some rest before you make yourself ill. Your Majesty." 

That actually drew a smile from him, making the pain of memory stab at me. "Don't waste your time on empty respect," he said. "It is clear that you don't consider yourself in any way my inferior." 

I shook my head, as much to try to get my tangled emotions to sort themselves into some kind of order as to refute his words. In no way his inferior? True, mine was the greater magic, although not, I thought, by a very large margin, and I had practical experience that no one who had spent his entire life in the benign environment of the floating islands could ever possess . . . and yet, I knew I was lacking something. Had been lacking it all my life. 

Whatever it was that bound people to one another in friendship, I had simply been born with less than the normal allotment—or at least, that was the conclusion that I was finally reaching, after decades of fumbling for understanding—and the life I had led had damaged that small allotment further. I was simply destined for a certain level of isolation. The man lying in the bed in front of me, on the other hand . . . while he might deny himself attachments for political reasons, if Fate were to lift the crown from his head tomorrow, Marus would have no trouble finding a place among his people. 

I rose from my chair and made a short bow: respect between equals. The king's smile widened, showing that he appreciated the nuance. 

I didn't wait for permission to leave. 

My quintet of feline shadows trotted at my heels as I left the bedchamber. Melchior was waiting just outside, and was already trying to slip past me before I could even tell him that his master wanted him. I quirked an eyebrow in his direction and held the door for him. 

The masked faces of the Lasher and Thrasher guarding the antechamber staircase turned to follow me as I moved through the room. I pretended to ignore them, but in truth, I was almost painfully alert to their presence—I wasn't about to allow myself to be attacked from behind. 

However, as soon as I emerged from the royal chambers, I found someone waiting for me who almost made me want to duck back in. 

"What are _you_ doing here?" I growled at Dalton. It was still disconcerting to see him with both eyes intact. 

The blonde man smirked. "Not as smart as you like people to think you are, are you? I was waiting for you, of course. One of the servants told me that you'd gone to talk to the king." His voice hit a sour note, and I was almost amused at this evidence of jealousy. I could just hear him raving at Belthasar: _The king woke up a few hours later, and who did he ask to see? That pointy-eared freak! Not me, his faithful Head of Security!_

However, I wasn't happy that the fool had been able to scrape together the courage to speak to me at all. _The problem with cockroaches,_ I reflected, _is that they're damnably resilient. The only way to deal with them is to kill them_ . . . and I didn't dare do that to Dalton. Not here, not yet—not until I could prove him to be as much of a traitor here as his other self had been in my home universe. I wasn't about to damage Schala's position by going on a murdering spree, no matter how tempting it was. 

Dalton was glaring at me. I stared coolly back at him and watched the colour of his face go from normal to pink to red to something that could only be called maroon. 

Suddenly, he lunged forward and grabbed me by the collar of my robe. I almost broke his arm, but I controlled myself before I did more than twitch my right hand reflexively. However, I did plant my feet and resist his efforts to pull me toward him. In the end, he had to step in toward me to achieve the effect he wanted, which naturally robbed it of any usefulness. 

"Listen, you," he said. He had recently eaten something containing a large amount of garlic—with our faces only inches apart, I couldn't escape the stench. "No bastard child of a construct will ever have the Princess. She belongs to me!" 

"Is that what this is all about?" I asked blandly. "Odd that you didn't mention it to that little coterie of fools who followed you into the throne room, but I suppose even you're smart enough to see that it would have robbed them of any interest in smoothing things over for you." My hand rose to grip his forearm, and I dug my thumb in among the muscles, probing for the location Slash had shown me when I had been under his tutelage as a child. When I found it, Dalton's grip instantly slackened, and I hooked his ankle with my foot and gave him a nice firm push to the chest that left him sprawled on the floor. He stayed there, blinking up at me, his mind clearly struggling to process what had just happened. 

"Schala has made her choice," I told him. "I suggest you accept it and move on. And if you ever lay hands on me again, I'll cut them off at the wrists." 

As I closed the door to my room behind me, I wondered why Belthasar had let the cockroach slip his leash. Could it be that the old man had no further use for him? If he had already discarded his tool, things were moving far more quickly than I would have liked . . . A familiar problem, that. 

The next morning, however, something happened that all but drove thoughts of Belthasar and Dalton out of my mind. 

"Schala, it isn't safe for you to be travelling right now." I had to force the words out through gritted teeth. "I wouldn't even be happy if you wanted to go to Kajar, and Algetty is out of the question." 

"Are you telling me to hide?" But Schala would not meet my eyes. Instead, she was pretending to read the titles of the many books stacked around me. Although I didn't truly need to do any research just then, the palace library was quiet, and Dalton never darkened its doorway, making it a good place to think. 

"I am telling you to be cautious," I snapped. "The surface presents almost infinite opportunities for ambushes. Protecting you there would be orders of magnitude more difficult than doing the same here. Do you want to fall into Belthasar's hands again?" 

"Algetty has asked for my help," Schala said. "Do you have any idea what it must have cost them just to see that this reached me? Someone may have spent _days_ begging every Enlightened passer-by to take it through the skyways before they finally found a willing messenger." She held up a vine leaf on which a short series of characters had been crudely scored with a knife. 

_Help us._

"I am not going to abandon them," the princess stated firmly. 

I scowled. "Then I'm coming with you, and you _will_ listen to me if I tell you to do something for your safety, do you understand?" 

I wasn't about to tell her that it was answering a similar call for help from Algetty that had killed my father, but as we stepped out of the cleared area around the final skyway an hour or so later, I almost wished that I had. 

"Don't be so gloomy," Schala told me as I floated over the snow field, keeping pace with her. "You look like a bad- tempered crow." 

I scowled. Perhaps my cape did look a bit like wings— I'd left that damnable robe back at the castle, where it couldn't get in the way if I needed to fight—but a _crow_? 

"Tell me, Janus, what does it take to make you really laugh, or even smile?" 

I forced myself to consider the question in the abstract. Witnessing an enemy do something really foolish that I could exploit was the main thing that came to mind . . . but I knew she wouldn't like that answer, so I settled for, "I don't know." 

"I thought that might be what you would say. One of these days, I will have to find out if you're ticklish." 

I refused to dignify that with a reply, although as far as I knew, I wasn't. Ticklish, that is. 

I was almost surprised when we arrived at Algetty without incident. The inhabitants stared at us as we climbed down toward the cave that housed their chief—or as Schala climbed and I floated from level to level, at any rate. At least we had managed to leave the cats behind on the floating islands, although they had followed me all the way to the first skyway. 

I passed through the doorway first, just as Schala was stepping off the last ladder. I raked the room with a sharp glare as the Earthbound chief cleared his throat—there was no ambush in wait, but . . . 

"Who are you?" the old man finally brought himself to ask just as I stepped aside and let Schala enter the room. As I had expected, she immediately all but ran over to the two small, still forms that lay together under a blanket in the back corner. Children, perhaps six or seven years old, I decided as I drifted across the room to stand protectively at Schala's shoulder. Both wore the rough leather tunics typical of the Earthbound as their only clothing. And both of them were white-faced and unconscious, only the slow rise and fall of their chests proving they were alive. Schala gently shook each of them in turn, but they didn't rouse. 

"This is . . . Dani and Alm . . . What happened?" she demanded of the village chief. 

"They were attacked," the old man said. "By what, we don't know. Tori was with them, but he says he saw only a huge shadow. They collapsed when it breathed on them, and we haven't been able to wake them, even though it's been almost two days." 

Schala bent over the children again, murmuring a spell. "This is no natural sleep," she said after a moment. "I thought . . . narcotic venom . . . but this is magic. It will take me some time to unravel it." 

"And every time this monster takes another victim, you're going to come back, aren't you?" I asked harshly. 

"Of course I am," came the firm reply. "Janus, these people can't deal with magic on their own." 

"I know that," I said through gritted teeth. 

"Then will you take care of that monster for me?" 

"Schala, are you certain that you understand what you're asking? That monster is clearly a construct. While I admit that it isn't completely impossible for it to have escaped from somewhere, it is _far_ more likely that it was deliberately set free to lure you here. And now you want me to leave you unprotected? Did you really enjoy Belthasar and Dalton's hospitality that much?" 

Silence, until the Earthbound chief cleared his throat and spoke. "Princess? You haven't introduced your escort yet." 

Schala blushed a little. "I am sorry, Falk—I was worried about the children. This is Janus, my . . . consort." She blushed even harder as she said the word. 

"Princess . . ." 

"It's merely an arrangement of convenience, if that reassures you," I said. "However, I won't see her put in danger." 

"Then I'm surprised that you allowed her to come here," the old man said. 

I shrugged. I wasn't about to tell him that I hadn't thought I could stop her, because I wasn't willing to take forceful measures against the image of my sister unless it was absolutely necessary, and nothing short of physical restraint would have kept her where she was safe, not under these circumstances. 

"Janus isn't nearly as bad as he is making out right now," that image was saying. "He is merely perpetually grumpy." 

I ignored that, and instead forced myself to consider the monster. I was quite certain that its presence here was a trap. The question is, did I dare leave it unsprung? Especially since Schala would come back—would _insist_ on coming back—whenever it attacked someone else . . . Sooner or later, I was going to make some kind of mistake, and the trap would close. If I killed the monster, the matter would at least be resolved for the time being, and we might have a little respite while Belthasar came up with something else. 

I was beginning to hate that old man as much as I ever had Lavos. 

"Where were they attacked?" I asked abruptly, interrupting something that the Earthbound chief was saying to Schala. 

"In one of the farm caverns," Falk said. "There was nothing there when we sent a hunting party back, however, and it's nearly impossible to conduct a clean sweep of all those tunnels. There are . . . other creatures . . . in there, but they normally avoid humans, even children, provided we don't encroach on their territory." 

"So closing the area off would be effectively impossible," I said, and added a curse. "The best solution," I continued, "would be for us to return to the Palace, and order a squad of Lashers down here to deal with your little . . . problem, but I'm not certain we can trust any of Dalton's men. If I have to go after it myself, I suppose that realistically Schala is in no more danger here than she would be there, provided that reasonable precautions are taken. It's unlikely that any of your people are working for the enemy, at least—I can't see Belthasar trying to recruit among the Earthbound. He would probably consider it beneath his dignity." 

"Janus—" 

"No, Princess, he is quite correct," the old man interrupted. "Most of your people consider us little more than vermin. You and Guru Melchior . . . and perhaps your consort . . . are the only exceptions I am aware of." 

"My father doesn't think of you that way either," Schala protested. 

"Perhaps not," Falk said. "Before the burden of the crown fell to him, I would have said definitely not, but since then he has not once descended from the floating islands." 

"He has too many duties," I said. "As the king of a country that is descending into crisis, as Arbiter, even as a father . . . I doubt very much that he has the leisure to concern himself with those not directly under his rule, especially not when the responsibilities he already has are endangering his health." 

Both of them blinked at me for a moment in what I expect was utter astonishment. 

It was Schala who finally spoke. "Thank you," she said softly. "I hadn't thought . . . you would care enough to try to defend him." 

"I was merely stating a fact," I said harshly, but my hand flexed involuntarily so that I could feel the pressure of the ring I wore. _Father . . ._ "I am going to have to seal this room against magical intrusion, then set spells to section off the tunnels so that I can search each area individually for this creature of yours. If you have a map, bring it to me. If you don't have one, I suggest you make one. And find some guards to put in here in case Dalton decides to show up in person. Schala, while I am gone, you are not to leave this room, understood?" 

A smile lit her face. I had always been weak to that smile. "Yes . . . and thank you." 

While setting protective spells on the headman's room was easy, the rest was not. The best map that the Earthbound could create from their pooled knowledge was very incomplete. The cave system in whose upper layers Algetty had been built apparently stretched back and down for tangled miles upon miles beyond the living quarters, mushroom farms, and storage areas that made up the settlement. Some of the tangled tunnels I would be able to block off, but I was painfully aware that no one knew just how many exits there were from some of those areas, and I didn't dare miss even one. 

For hours, I strode through the tunnel complex, dividing it up as best I could and searching the most essential portions first. There was nothing in the four huge mushroom farm caverns, which reeked of rot and fertilizer, and I had cleared more than half of the storage areas as well when an Earthbound youth came running up to me. 

"Lord Janus," the boy panted. "There has been an attack on the living quarters! Princess Schala, she . . ." He waved his hands expressively. 

Utter cold panic shot through me, and I grabbed the young Earthbound by the collar of his tunic and yanked him toward me. "She _what_ , you fool?" I snapped. "Is she hurt? _What happened?!_ " 

The boy took a deep breath . . . and breathed clouds of sparkling blackness in my face. 

_Trap!_ my mind belatedly screamed, and I shoved the creature, which was certainly _not_ an Earthbound, away from me, as those of my personal protections that were designed to absorb poisons and spells that mimicked them blocked its attack. 

It didn't seem surprised or dismayed at its failure— indeed, it kept its balance despite my shove, and even smiled at me as it raised its arms. Shadows began to coalesce around it, but I wasn't about to give it time to finish what it was now doing. I hurled a fire spell at it . . . and it giggled. 

"Oh, no," it said from within a mass of shadow that was suddenly thick enough to hide it entirely. "Not that way." It was almost as though it had used my magic to create the darkness that now enveloped it. 

That effect had to have been planned, presumably by Belthasar, with the intent of making me helpless against his little pet nuisance. How little he knew! I smiled thinly and pulled out my scythe, eyes probing the darkness. The creature had possessed the faint aura of an Earthbound human—if it hadn't, I would have noticed something was wrong the moment it approached me. And although the shadows blocked my normal sight, they seemed to have no effect on my subtler senses. 

I did have to be careful, though, because while its aura gave away the creature's location, that was all it told me—I couldn't tell whether it was facing me or had its back to me, whether it was preparing to attack or waiting for me to do something, or even whether it shared my handicap of being unable to see through the shadows. I would, I decided, do my best to end this in one blow. 

Silently, I pushed off the ground and floated to one side—a useless manoeuvre if the creature could see me, but potentially devastating if it couldn't—then shot forward and swung my scythe in a powerful horizontal motion at waist level. If I missed, I would be leaving myself open for a counterattack, but if I hit, the creature was dead unless it had been concealing armour under that stupid tunic. 

I felt the blade strike something and shear through, the pattern of resistance suggesting that there were bones involved. There were a couple of wet thudding noises, and then the shadows began to dissipate. But the Black Wind was, for some reason, rising. 

I had, I discovered when I was able to see again, cut the creature neatly in half at the waist, and also removed half of one forearm. The corpse would not have passed for human on even the most cursory examination, since the tunic appeared to be part of its hide, rather than an actual garment. Definitely a construct, then, and tailored for this environment: a living trap, just as I had suspected. The question was, what had it been intended to catch? Had Belthasar underestimated me by so much, or . . . ? 

My eyes narrowed. _Or_ , indeed. This creature, with its sleep-spelled breath, had been intended to put its prey out of action, not kill: it had no more natural weapons than the Earthbound youth it had mimicked. And there was only one reason I could think of why anyone would want to leave me unconscious in one of Algetty's back tunnels. 

I spoke the teleportation spell as quickly as I could, but by the time I reached the Earthbound chieftain's room, the damage was already—gorily—done. The shredded bodies of three young men littered the floor outside the door, the ward I had placed was broken, and Schala was missing. 

I raked the room with my gaze, and noticed two small, shivering forms huddled in the corner. The children, now awake. I scowled. They had surely seen what had happened here, but how was I to get any information from them? Frightening them wouldn't work when they were already paralytic with fear. I needed to reassure them. Somehow. 

First I put my scythe away—having a weapon present certainly wouldn't help matters—and then I went over and crouched down an arm's length or so away from them, putting myself on their level. Then I tried to force myself to relax. I needed information badly, but these children were in such a state that too much intensity—about anything—was likely to be counterproductive. At least, since they were Earthbound, I wouldn't have the additional effect of my aura to worry about. 

"Dani and Alm, isn't it?" I said after a moment of rummaging through my recent memories for the names Schala had used. "Are you hurt?" 

A wide-eyed headshake from both children. 

"That's good." _At least they're communicating something,_ I told myself. _It's a start._ "Did you see what happened?" 

Another headshake. "The Princess, she said . . . not to look," one of them whispered. "When the bad men came." 

I forced myself to close my eyes and count to ten rather than pouncing on that immediately. "But you saw them. The 'bad men'." _Schala, I truly wish you were here. This would be easy for you._

Nods. 

I conjured two illusions, keeping them small and slightly transparent. "Was either of these men there?" 

A small hand disentangled itself from somewhere between their bodies, and pointed. Dalton. Why was I not surprised? Dalton, but not Belthasar. That didn't surprise me either—it was too early in the game for the old snake to show himself in person. 

The children were starting to shiver—going into shock? I bit back a curse, banished my illusions, and raked the room with another quick glance. There it was, crumpled by the far wall: the blanket under which the children had been resting when Schala and I arrived, mercifully unbloodied. A quick series of gestures called it to my hand, and I put a warmth spell on it before standing up and moving a little closer to the children so that I could spread it over them. Slowly, the shivering ceased. 

"You said that the Princess told you not to watch," I resumed, doing my best to keep my voice soft. "Did she go with the 'bad men'?" 

Another nod. "I think so," a soft voice enlarged. "They told her that if she went, they wouldn't hurt us—" 

"I peeked!" the other child interrupted. "The blonde man was going to hurt us anyway, but the Princess grabbed his arm and said that if he did, she would never, ever do anything that he wanted her to. And then they went away." 

Which was probably all true—Dalton had a sadistic streak, and he would tend to go back on his word. 

"Did they say where they were going?" I asked. 

Headshakes. It was all I could do not to scowl. Schala taken by Dalton, presumably to Belthasar's mysterious research laboratory, which could be almost anywhere on the planet. If Dalton were stupid enough to return to the floating islands, perhaps I would be able to strangle the location out of him, but I was willing to bet that his master was going to keep him close from now on. 

" . . . Thank you," I forced myself to say . . . just as Falk, the Earthbound elder, appeared in the doorway. 

"Lord Janus, what happened here?" 

I shook my head angrily. "The trap I expected was sprung while I was occupied with killing your monster." The taste of failure was bitter on my tongue. I should have thought to tie the barrier spells to an alarm, should have locked Schala up back at the Palace and come here alone . . . _Should._ Just then, I hated that word—and myself, not that that was anything unusual. 

"Then the Princess . . . ?" 

"She was taken," I snapped. "You'll find the monster's corpse in a side tunnel between the two furthest mushroom farms—clean it up before it rots. And don't expect any more help from me until I find Schala." 

To my surprise, the old man bowed deeply. "Thank you," he said. "For everything. If we can ever help you in any way . . ." 

"Believe me, if I ever have any use for you, I won't hesitate to mention it." It might even happen—dupes can be useful sometimes. 

My teleport placed me, not back at the Palace, but in an out-of-the-way corner of the island which held Enhasa. I needed to think, ideally without the distractions of cold, other people, or my little herd of cats, and the inhabitants of the Dreaming City were unlikely to come so far from their beds. 

Belthasar had Schala again, that much was clear, and I had to get to her as soon as possible. The question was, where was the old snake hiding? He clearly had some kind of private base, but it might be anywhere in the world, or even in a pocket dimension for all I knew. There were thousands upon thousands of square miles of frozen wasteland on the surface that no one ever visited, plus who knew how many more cave complexes like the one that held Algetty . . . Schala could be dead of old age by the time I finished searching it all. I could set the Earthbound to scouring their own locality, of course, but if one of them got lucky he would probably just end up dead before he could report back. 

I would have given my right eye for a reliable divination spell just then, but of course there is no such thing—if there were, my search for my sister would have been much shorter. Magic is capable of a great deal, but it can't pull information out of nothing. If only I had been there when Belthasar's minions had raided Algetty . . . 

I swore softly, almost incredulously. I _could_ be there. Even now. Why was I so reluctant to use time travel in this universe? It was as though I had developed a mental block against it. 

I considered that as I began to draw the familiar circle on a smooth-worn outcropping of rock. Granted, I didn't know what the Belthasar of this universe might or might not know about time travel, but I didn't normally allow mere _possibilities_ to frighten me into closing off a course of action. That there would be no little platform with a lamppost at its center in this world's End of Time I knew, but I was fairly certain that I knew how Gaspar had created his little refuge and that I could use the same technique to shape something more to my liking. 

No, I realized as I completed the last lines of the circle diagram, the real problem was that I didn't want to see the future of this world. I didn't want to know whether I was currently going to be able to save this Zeal or damn it as I had damned my home. Not that travelling into the recent past would give me any insight into the future, but it was as though, on some level, I considered any kind of time travel a step in the wrong direction— an invitation, perhaps. 

Well, I would just have to get over that. 

As I had been expecting, the spell spat me out into the writhing darkness of a vacant End of Time. Immediately, I drank my last elixir, and then set to work. 

The trick, as I understood it, was to simply _believe_ that what I wanted existed. The stuff of the End of Time was malleable, and a strong enough will could shape it. And so I closed my eyes and visualized what I wanted, forcing myself to believe that, when I opened them again, I would see the soft hues of etheric lighting reflected from pale stone . . . 

After a few moments, I tapped the heel of one boot firmly against the ground and was rewarded with the sound of it striking something that wasn't the not-quite-there twisting darkness native to this area. I opened my eyes. 

I was standing on a rectangular platform divided in two by an extension of the low wall that bordered it. The marble under my feet was cream-coloured, although the bluish etheric lighting made it look more green than anything else. To my right, beyond the low wall, a fountain bubbled with something that wasn't water. To my left, obsidian and white quartz, set into the surface of the marble, formed a familiar round diagram. 

I walked through the gap in the dividing wall and scooped up a handful of the liquid from the fountain, tasting it cautiously. However, its appearance and flavour, not to mention the tingling sensation it left behind on my tongue, indicated that it was indeed the elixir that I had envisioned it as being. I filled all the empty vials in my pockets, then turned my attention to business and invoked Gaspar's time-viewing spell. 

Eight Thrashers and Dalton, who stood back as the constructs plowed through the three Earthbound guarding the door, beating them to death. I smiled thinly as I saw Dalton test the magic-barred door and get himself flung backwards across the hallway, but the smile disappeared when I saw him produce a talisman from his pocket and press it against the door instead. The spells I had placed disintegrated in an explosion of white and purple lightnings, enabling the human cockroach to touch and open the door unscathed. Belthasar had sent him in prepared, evidently. 

Even with a talisman, I doubted Dalton could teleport nine people besides himself, so I wasn't at all surprised to see him re-emerge gripping Schala's wrist. She was staring at the human cockroach's back with a cold, shuttered expression that I couldn't recall ever having seen on my real sister's face . . . although it did look like something that I occasionally saw in the mirror. 

I followed them as they left the cave complex, although part of my mind was yammering at me to wade in and save Schala _now_ , and damn the consequences. However, I had quite a bit of experience when it came to silencing that impulsive part of myself, and was able to use a small part of my will to metaphorically bind it, gag it, and bury it in a shallow grave while the remainder of me continued to watch Dalton as he led his little party south and east across the barren tundra of the surface world. After what seemed like forever, they stopped in a small valley among the crumpled hills of that continent's north shore. Dalton made an expansive gesture and gave some order—the spell wasn't able to transmit sound—and two of the Thrashers pulled out folding brooms and went to work sweeping the snow off a level patch of ground. It took a while, but eventually, they revealed . . . 

. . . a Skyway. They clustered together on it, Dalton still dragging Schala, and then the human cockroach activated the device, and they were gone. Gone _up_ , to my surprise. I had expected them to head down, into some cave. Where was the other terminal? 

I thought about it for a moment, then barked an appreciative laugh as I watched the winds drag snow back across Belthasar's private little back door. Of course—the old snake had probably set up _underneath_ , in a cave hollowed out of the base of the largest floating island. The last place where anyone, including me, would ever think of looking for him without the hint that his minion had so kindly provided me with. 

I banished the vision of an empty, frozen valley and went over to the design inlaid in the other half of the platform. I'd drop myself near the Skyway a little before they were due to arrive, to make certain that they couldn't avoid me, and there I would take them. 

* * *

"What are you idiots doing? Get those brooms out and swee— _By the Flame!_ " 

I smiled thinly as my casting of Dark Bomb sent snow and Thrashers flying while Dalton stared, open-mouthed, at the eruption. Schala yanked her wrist from his grip as he stared, and would have broken free of him if he hadn't tackled her to the snowy ground—an unusually physical act for the human cockroach . . . or at least, it would have been for his counterpart in my universe. I was going to have to try to remember that I didn't know this Dalton. 

I leapt from my half-concealed position against the ridge and flew toward them, tossing another Dark Bomb at the Thrashers in passing to keep any living ones occupied. As I shot past, I grabbed Dalton's cape and a handful of hair and used those and my momentum to pull him off Schala. He was heavier than I thought, however, and the sudden loss of speed landed me on top of him only a few feet away from his erstwhile victim. 

Broad hands grabbed for my neck as we plowed up another fountain of snow. I evaded them, but I knew I needed to put some distance between us: Dalton's greater weight gave him an advantage in a wrestling match like this, one that I couldn't completely offset with speed and skill. He seemed to know it too, and managed to get his legs around my waist—he couldn't squeeze me strongly enough to do any actual damage, but I couldn't get loose either. For a few seconds, he actually had me pinned under him, but then I bit him, using my fangs to rip a good-sized chunk of flesh from the left side of his face, and he sat up, roaring, which gave me an instant to flip him under again. 

That was probably the only time in my adult life that the taste of blood has made me gag, however. 

This Dalton seemed less disturbed by the idea of "brawling like a construct" than the one I remembered, and had apparently even done some wrestling before, but he hadn't had four years of Slash pounding combat skills into him in the courtyard of Ozzie's fort, followed by decades of war and adventuring to hone those abilities. He certainly lacked my ruthlessness—he would punch and kick and strangle, but it never seemed to occur to him to bite or gouge or simply behave as though he really was fighting for his life. 

It was his hair that eventually proved his undoing, though. To be exact, I grabbed a handful of hair, which forced his head to stay still for a moment, and used the opportunity to smash his nose with the heel of my hand. During the moment in which he howled, distracted, I gouged ruthlessly at his groin. The howl shot up an octave into a shrill scream, and Dalton finally released his leg-grip on my waist, rolled over onto his side, and curled into a protective ball around his damaged parts. 

I got slowly to my feet, letting him arrange himself as he pleased. Feeling blood trickle down my chin—Dalton had gotten me in the mouth with an elbow, and I'd sliced my flesh open there with my own fangs—I swiped it away with the back of my hand. Then I pulled my scythe from its hiding place, smiling coldly as I saw Dalton's eyes widen. 

"You will never harm her again," I said, and drew back my arm to strike. 

"Janus, no!" 

Fine-boned hands gripped my wrist. Tearing free of them would have meant breaking all her fingers. 

"And why not?" I asked sharply, half-turning to face Schala. 

"Because you're not the sort of person who would . . . who would . . ." She seemed unable to complete the sentence. 

"Commit cold-blooded murder?" I suggested. "How little you know of me. I've killed many men, Schala, most of them far better people than this roach, and only a sentimental fool would leave him alive to attempt something like this again. Hasn't what you've been through at their hands taught you anything? Some people can't be saved. They chase after their own destruction and spread their arms wide to embrace it. If you're ever to be queen, you need to develop the courage to harm men like this one, lest they harm others." 

Dalton was muttering something at the ground. I'd been taking little notice of it, but now his voice rose triumphantly on one final word, and light flowered around us, shooting up from under the snow. Cursing, I tried to push Schala away, out of the circle, but I was encumbered by my weapon and by her grip on my arm, and was unable to get her clear before the Skyway activated. 

We emerged in a cloud of disturbed snow, and I immediately yanked Schala toward me, trying to position her where I could most easily protect her, but she tripped and fell, jerking her grip from my arm and mine from her wrist. Cursing, I squinted into the snow, trying to find her moon-pale aura against the whiteness. I was tempted to try to clear the damnable stuff with a wind spell, but that might equally have made things worse. Better to wait it out, with my nerves stretched to the breaking point and the seconds crawling by like years— 

Someone spoke a fire spell, and the snow melted, hanging in the air for a moment before pattering to the ground as rain. I cursed myself for not having thought of that first. Dalton swore too: he was still curled up on the ground not far from me, and had gotten thoroughly soaked. And Schala was— 

My eyes darted around the room. A moment later, I found her, and wished I hadn't, because she wasn't alone, or safe, or anywhere I could help her. 

Besides the three of us who had arrived from below, there were two people in the big, irregular cave with the smooth, engraved floor. Belthasar was one, and it was he who had Schala in his grasp, with a knife to her throat. Behind him stood a cloaked figure with a hood pulled forward over its face. 

"Drop your weapon if you want her to live," Belthasar said. 

I gave him a cold sneer and returned my scythe to its normal invisible position at my side. He wasn't stupid enough to give up his bargaining chip so fast, and with the scythe out of sight, he would probably forget about it soon enough. 

"That was not what I asked you to do," the old man said. 

"Do you honestly expect me to play the hostage game by the _rules_?" I asked, forcing myself to sound amused. "Unfortunately for you, I've been on the other side of it enough times to know exactly how it works. Kill Schala, and there will be absolutely nothing to stop me from doing the same to you . . . so you won't do it if you have even a shred of reason left, not unless I'm stupid enough to attack you. This is a stalemate, nothing more." 

The giggle definitely didn't come from Belthasar. "As cold-blooded and traitorous as ever, I see, Lord Magus." 

My eyes narrowed. I knew that voice, although I had never expected to hear it again—knew it very well. "Flea. What are you doing here?" 

The second figure flipped back its hood. Flea indeed, although not quite as I remembered him—but then, who knew how much time had elapsed for him since our last confrontation outside Ozzie's throne room? Long enough for faint lines to develop near his mouth and for threads of white to appear in his hair. I didn't think that the odd, glazed look in his eyes had been created by time, though. Something else was going on there. 

When he smiled, those lines around his mouth were at odds with his expression. "You mean you don't know? And yet, it was your spell that flung me here." 

I raised my eyebrows. "Did it?" I said with calculated disinterest. 

"You really didn't know," Flea repeated. "Careless of you—but then, everything that happened toward the end was careless, wasn't it? You didn't care what happened to us once you didn't need us anymore and went off with your little _human_ friends . . . but of course, you were one of them all along, weren't you? A human of this place, this . . . _Zeal_. No wonder you felt free to trample all over us. To you, we were less than slaves—less than animals, even. Discarded toys, nothing more." 

"Not toys," I corrected. Tools, perhaps, but a toy is something with no use but to amuse, and they certainly hadn't been that. "Do you honestly think that, back in those days, I had time to _play_?" 

Flea giggled. "Ooo, I've offended you. Good." He glanced to his left, where Belthasar and his hostage stood. "Your little princess doesn't look very happy either. Didn't you tell her about yourself before you seduced her? Did you even tell her that I had you first?" 

I glared coldly at him. "Schala is not my lover, and that is a bald-faced lie." 

"Is it? How would you know? You were drunk out of your mind the night of our first victory. Drunk enough that you didn't even feel me pierce your ears. How would you know if I'd opened your pants as well?" 

"Because if you had, I would have had to kill Slash a lot earlier than I did," I said, and saw him flinch. 

"You bastard . . . Tell me, Magus _darling_ , do you know how many nights I've dreamed of killing you since I landed here? How many nights, how many ways . . . it took me _years_ to come up with a method that would make you suffer enough to atone for Slash . . . for Ozzie . . . for our people." Flea's eyes didn't look glazed anymore. Instead, they burned with something unholy. 

"So why are you still talking about it?" I asked, forcing myself to sound idly amused. "Lost your nerve?" I glanced at Schala out of the corner of my eye, but Belthasar hadn't slackened his grip yet. 

Flea's smile was . . . disturbing. "You keep looking at the little princess. She may not be your lover, but she means something to you, doesn't she? Something important. Hmmm. Your hair is exactly the same colour . . . and you bear a striking resemblance to the pictures I've seen of the king . . . almost as though you were her son. Or her brother." 

_Don't flinch,_ I ordered myself sternly. If I made the least movement, she would know, and . . . what? Why would it matter if she did know? 

"I could equally be her great-grandfather," I pointed out dryly. "Or no relation at all. There are a lot of Enlightened with blue hair. You can't even figure out whether you're male or female, so why should you have any insight into other people's relationships?" The look on Belthasar's face when I said that was . . . quite something, I noted. Evidently there were a few things that Flea hadn't mentioned to him. 

"You're dissembling now, _darling_. Did you think I wouldn't remember what it means when you tilt your head that way? I watched you for almost twenty years, you know. I know how you act when you're trying to hide something." 

"It's been nearly a quarter of a century for me since those days," I said evenly. "Do you truly believe that I haven't changed, in all that time?" 

Flea giggled again. "Oh, you _have_ changed, Lord Magus—in ways I never would have believed possible. For instance, if I say—" Suddenly, he whipped a stiletto from his sleeve, and placed it against Schala's throat beside Belthasar's knife. "—'Do exactly what I tell you to if you want her to live,' you'd actually do it, wouldn't you?" 

"Flea, put the knife down," I said through teeth clenched so firmly I could feel a slight outward pressure against the roots of my fangs. The Black Wind was howling so loudly that I could barely hear myself speak. 

Flea tilted his head. "A quarter of a century since I took orders from you, and you expect things to just go back to the way they were? _On your knees, traitor!_ " 

He applied the least bit of pressure to the stiletto, and Schala made a soft, despairing noise as a red droplet ran down the column of her neck. 

Slowly, very slowly, I lowered myself to one knee, then to both. I kept my head high and my eyes fixed on Flea's face, belatedly noticing that there were no signs of sanity there. 

"Oh, very good, _darling_. She truly is important to you, isn't she? I've never seen you humble yourself before for anyone." 

That giggle was truly getting on my nerves, I noted with forced detachment. 

Flea smirked at me as he whispered a word and plucked something from thin air—a ring-shaped object of about the diameter of a crown, but wider, and with a hinge that fell open, turning it into two half-circles, as he carelessly shifted his grip . . . a collar? 

He flung it to the floor, where it slid across the space between us until it nudged against my knee. 

"Put it on," Flea ordered. 

Slowly, I picked the thing up and examined it. There was some sort of spell on it, that much was clear—a non- elemental spell, Flea's specialty, judging from the colourlessness of the runes swimming within the silvery metal. 

"I said 'put it on', not 'analyze it'!" Flea pressed a little harder on his blade, drawing a thin trickle of blood from Schala's throat. 

There would, it appeared, be no more stalling for time. I gathered up my hair in one hand to make sure that it wouldn't get caught, lifted the collar into place, and awkwardly snapped it shut. 

A moment later, I pitched forward onto my hands. It was like what Lavos had done to me long ago in the Ocean Palace, only worse, because there was no end to this—that damned collar was draining away every drop of magic that I possessed, leaving me weak and shaking, and I knew instinctively as the Black Wind faded from my hearing that I could drink ether from now until next week without recovering enough to so much as light a candle. 

Forcing steady and deliberate motion on myself, I sat back on my heels and tested the collar's catch . . . and discovered that I couldn't find it. Likewise, the hinge seemed to have disappeared, although it had been fairly unobtrusive in the first place, so I couldn't be certain. 

"Unwise," I said as Flea, smirking, finally lowered his knife from Schala's throat. "Do you honestly think that my magic was the only thing that ever made me dangerous? You should know me better than that, Flea." 

There was, I told myself sternly, nothing mechanically wrong with my muscles, bones, or joints—no reason that I shouldn't get to my feet. My personal grooming spells, still hanging about me although I could no longer sense them, wiped the sheen of sweat from my forehead so that no one but me would ever know how much effort was required. 

Flea giggled. "Oh, but can you fight an enemy that _has_ magic with your own powers bound? Even that nasty devious mind of yours won't get you very far with a handicap like that, _darling_." 

"I am going to tear you apart with my bare hands and enjoy every minute of it," I said harshly—in the language of the sixth century, making Belthasar blink and frown. 

"Do you really think so?" Flea asked interestedly. "Well, then, why don't you give it a try?" He put his knife away, then took three steps forward and sideways, away from Schala and Belthasar, and spread his arms wide. 

I knew it was exactly what he wanted, but I did it anyway—ran forward, only to have him teleport out of the way before I could take a swing at him. 

"I'm over _here_ , _darling_!" 

Another charge, another miss. Flea was giggling . . . and Belthasar, the old fool, was letting his arm relax and his knife fall away from Schala's throat. And Flea was stupid enough to play right into my hands by making his next appearance in a direct line between me and the old snake. 

Neither of them seemed to realize what was going on until I plunged straight past the place where Flea had disappeared once again and, spinning on my heel, slammed a kick into Belthasar's knife-wrist. I was too weak to bring as much force to bear as I should have, but the old man's bones were brittle enough that I heard a distinct snapping sound anyway. 

I grabbed Schala by the shoulders as the knife fell, separating the two of them, and shoved her toward the Skyway. 

"Go!" I snapped. "Get back to the Palace! Tell them—" 

Schala's face cleared, and she took a running step in the direction of the Skyway, determination in her expression. For a moment, I thought she was going to make it—she didn't have very far to go, and there was no one between her and it—but I had reckoned without Flea. 

He appeared directly in her path, and she plowed into him as I had been pretending to try to do. Before she could recover, he grabbed her in a bear hug. 

"Oh, no, my dear. You're not going anywhere . . . although it was a nice try." 

Of course, while he held her, Flea was pinned in place . . . I began to move toward them, but before I could take more than a step, I was tackled from behind. 

"Not so high-and-mighty now, are you, you son of a bitch?" Dalton's voice breathed in my ear. I twisted in his grip like a hooked fish, but weakened as I was, and with him wise enough to my tricks to keep his flesh out of range of my fangs, there was no way that I could have won this wrestling rematch. I didn't make it easy for him, though: when he finally pinned me, he had to use all four limbs, and I made it very clear that relaxing his grip—anywhere—would have bruising consequences. 

"Janus!" Schala wriggled in Flea's grip, but I knew that there was no chance of her getting loose—the Mystic might not have been much of a fighter, but unlike her he had at least been trained. Nor was he completely stupid, however little sanity he might have left. He spoke the sleep spell quickly and firmly, and because he was so gifted at Void magic, he could actually make it work even against a stronger mage. Schala slumped against him, and Flea gestured to someone who was outside my field of vision from where I was lying on my side on the floor—a Nu, I discovered a moment later. 

"Take her to her room," Flea said with a smirk. "And you, bring some elixir for Lord Belthasar." That was addressed to someone else that I couldn't see, presumably another Nu. Then the slender Mystic walked over to me and, very deliberately, kicked me in the stomach. I glared coldly at him. It wasn't difficult. I couldn't seem to get warm. "Arrogant to the end. Tell me, Magus, if I told you that begging for mercy would save your life, would you do it?" 

Save my life? I laughed. Didn't he realize? With this damned collar around my neck, I was dead anyway. 

I was still laughing when another kick connected with my head, stunning me, and Dalton's hands wrapped around my neck and sent me down into darkness.


	7. VII. Between Life and Death

It was the third time in my life that I was surprised to find myself alive to wake up. Actually, at first I thought I _was_ dead, because I couldn't hear the Black Wind, and I certainly hurt enough that I might have been in the process of being punished for my multitudinous sins. It took my mind, which felt like it was swimming through slush, several minutes to recognize the throbbing nova of agony behind my eyes as the nastiest drain headache I had ever had, and several minutes more to put that together with recent events. 

Getting my eyes open was exhausting, and getting them to focus was such a trial that I don't want to remember it, but eventually I was able to figure out that I had been placed in a cube-shaped cell about eight feet to a side. A dim etheric light floated near the ceiling, and there were a few fist-sized holes in each wall near floor level, presumably for ventilation. Other than that, everything was featureless stone. There was no door— presumably, I had been teleported in here, and would leave the same way . . . if I was ever permitted to leave at all. 

Using one of the walls, I was able to raise myself to a sitting position, but the effort exhausted me and left beads of cold sweat trickling over my skin for a moment despite the personal grooming spells which dried them a moment later. I couldn't decide whether my limbs felt more like cooked noodles or lead, as they were weak enough for the former, but seemed heavy enough for the latter . . . and then I muttered a curse as I realized how my mind was wandering. 

"Janus? Is that you?" 

"Schala!" Who had been fool enough to put us in adjacent cells? Personally, I was betting on Dalton. "Are you all right?" 

"They did me no serious harm, but . . . I am very, very frightened." 

"Don't worry," I said. "We _will_ find some way out of this, I promise you." Odd how, with her, reassurances I would never have bothered with when speaking to anyone else fell so easily from my tongue . . . 

"What of you? Dalton . . . Belthasar had to have one of the Nu pull him off you." 

"I don't think he did any irreparable damage—nothing feels broken, at least." Except possibly the inside of my head. "Does the room you're in have any obvious exit?" 

"No. And I can't teleport very far on my own, and they've taken all my talismans." She sounded like she was about to cry. 

A sudden flash of near-panic ran through me, then evaporated when my fingers found the steel crescent still in its place at my side. That led me to the question of why Flea had left it there, given that he knew something of what it was . . . 

A choked-off sob drew my attention back to the young woman on the other side of the wall. 

"We're alone here," I said. "No need to control yourself. Cry, if you think it will ease you." 

"I . . . just keep talking to me, please. Remind me that I am not alone here." 

Scrambling for a topic, I said, "I doubt this wall is more than six inches thick. If you were to reach into one of the holes, then perhaps . . ." 

There was a scrabbling noise, and then I saw a flash of something pale out of the corner of my eye: the tips of her fingers, just protruding from one of those holes. Weakly, I clasped her hand in mine. 

"Janus, that woman—Flea? Who is she? I mean, where do you know her from?" 

"Flea is a man," I corrected. "And he was one of my companions in hell—a native of the future I was flung to after the Fall of Zeal. I never expected to find him alive, here, especially not with his lover dead. He must have wanted revenge very badly." 

"Revenge . . . on you?" 

"Yes." I said it as calmly as I could. "In a sense, he is entirely justified: I _did_ kill Slash, although it was in self- defense, and I _did_ use and betray them both, because they were less important to me than the revenge I sought for myself. You could say that I understand Flea almost too well. Indeed, I've done things more terrible than he and Dalton and Belthasar combined could ever manage." 

"And yet, somehow, you managed not to lose your soul." Schala's fingers gently squeezed mine. 

"You say the most unexpected things sometimes," I told her, squeezing back. "What makes you think that I'm not just a monster pretending that I'm still a man?" 

"I can't be certain, but I think it might be because I sense something in you that is still capable of caring for others." 

I breathed something that almost managed to be a laugh. "You say that after you stopped me from killing Dalton?" 

"I . . . won't say that I was wrong to do that," Schala replied slowly, "but I also don't expect you to feel the same way. After all, you are a shadow-element." 

"And so?" 

"They didn't believe in the relationship between personality and elemental affinity in your Zeal?" 

"I never paid much attention to it." In truth, it was probably one of the dozen and one things I had never had a chance to learn about before the Fall tore my world away from me, because I had no idea what she was talking about. "Neither did anyone else, I expect, or people wouldn't have spent so much time insisting, when I was a child, that I _had_ to be a lightning- or wind-element like my parents." 

"You are an Invert? That . . . makes an odd sort of sense. Hmm. Were you in contact with many people as a child?" 

"No. Until I reached my seventh year, I was ill and confined to bed more often than not." Those memories were very dim now . . . perhaps fortunately. 

"Then the mistake is understandable, because the main difference between lightning- and shadow-elements lies in how we form connections with people." 

"Go on," I said into the unexpected pause, on the grounds that while she was talking, she wasn't worrying. 

"Well . . . You would know, of course, that most of the higher-order spells involving vision or light are lightning elemental. Just as people can see great distances in places lit by the sun, the heart of a lightning-user sees people, even those who are . . . ideologically distant from us . . . as important and valuable, and so we want to help and protect everyone we can. We can also sometimes be a bit superficial," Schala added with something that was midway between a laugh and a sigh. "Looking at a person doesn't tell you everything about him, after all, and we tend to want to think the best of people . . . or at least, I do." 

It may be fortunate that I lacked the energy to laugh. It wasn't a bad description of Schala herself, which might be why she believed in it, and it might even have been twisted around to fit Crono, Marus, and Gaspar, but if Belthasar—either of him— saw people as "important and valuable" or wanted to think the best of them and protect them, I would eat my scythe. And as for my mother . . . No, that was unfair. I had been very young in the days when she had still been herself, untainted by Lavos and the Frozen Flame. 

Or perhaps the problem was merely a hidden value judgement. Being aware of the people around you didn't necessarily have to translate into liking them. Perhaps Belthasar had merely come to the conclusion that all of the many people he perceived were fools, and should be herded around for their own good. 

"And what does the accumulated wisdom of the ages have to say about shadow-users?" I asked, keeping my voice neutral with an effort. 

"Stop laughing," came the indignant reply—perhaps I hadn't kept my tone as level as I'd thought. 

I stroked my thumb across the back of her hand. "Can you think of anything either of us needs more, right now, than a good laugh?" I asked. 

"Probably not," she admitted. "All right, then. Shadow-users. Shadow is the magic of illusion and deception, so you tend to be suspicious of people, and that makes you standoffish. But the few people you do love and trust, you defend and cling to fiercely—almost to the point of insanity. Melchior once said it was as though shadow-elements were in a darkened room where only what you touch can be proven to be real, and only the real is important." 

"From the sound of it, your Melchior reads too many fortune cookies," I said dryly. "However, given how rare shadow elements are, I'll forgive the inaccuracies in his little portrait of my kind." 

"What's a fortune cookie?" 

Trying to explain that particular Chorasian affectation consumed some time and netted me some giggles, which was more use than I'd ever gotten out of the damned things when Lucca had brought them back to her lab with her meals during the period we had spent together on that remote island. 

Perhaps not surprisingly, the discussion of silly prophecies contained in baked goods led to other things. Schala was fascinated by the idea of a world that was truly without magic, and peppered me with questions. 

" . . . It sounds like a paradise," she said at one point. 

"Don't be fooled by the fact that I'm leaving all the bad parts out," I said. "Even ignoring the ugliness that is war without magic—and there are a lot of wars in that kind of world, Schala—can you imagine a world without healing magic? Where serious injuries have to heal on their own as best they can, and broken minds can't be healed at all? In a world like that, I would have died before ever being born." 

"Ugh. No, when you put it that way, it doesn't sound very paradisical, does it? And I suppose there are a lot of other little things that I take for grated that wouldn't exist in such a world either. But a warm surface world . . . I have seen it with my own eyes, and yet it seems like a dream. But seeing that was one of the two good things to come out of this mess." 

"And the other?" I asked, curious. 

Schala squeezed my hand. "Meeting you." 

It left me at a loss for words, able to do nothing but listen to her as she rambled. 

"I don't know why, but having you beside me feels _right_ , as though you should have been there all along. There is a solidity there, a kind of partnership that I never knew I wanted until now. I . . . have been wondering if this means I am falling in love with you." 

"If you are able to ask the question, I would say . . . most likely not," I replied, ignoring the sharp pang of regret as I voiced the words. "Besides, you hardly even know me." 

"You keep saying that," Schala complained. "Well, then, tell me about yourself. It isn't as though we have anything else we can do right now." 

"How . . . sweet," said a cutting voice. 

With my gaze turned down and my attention tightly focussed on Schala—and my weakness causing me something like tunnel vision—I hadn't even noticed Flea and his two Nu escorts appearing in my cell. 

"What do _you_ want?" I asked irritably. "And, for that matter, how did you get them in here? Did Belthasar make you a new teleportation talisman?" Hopefully, he'd think that was just an idle question. 

Flea smirked. "You always were sharp. Yes, he did— Lord Belthasar has a far better grasp of the principles involved than you ever did. As for why we're here . . . Apparently, the King of Zeal wants to negotiate a hostage exchange, and for some unfathomable reason, you're part of the package. However, he refuses to proceed without proof that both you and his daughter are still alive, so I came here to make a little record. What I already have should be enough, though." He held up a small crystalline sphere, cupped in the palm of his left hand, as though admiring it. 

Gritting my teeth, I gathered my paltry strength together and launched myself from the floor before the slender Mystic could leave my cell. I slammed into him hard and knocked him over backwards, but I was so weak that it took him only a few moments to claw free and fling a spell at me, slamming me up against the wall so hard that I heard bones crack and felt part of my ribcage give as I slid back down into a sitting position not unlike the one I had started from. 

"I would ask what that was all about, but the truth is that I don't much care," Flea said, sneering, as one of the Nu retrieved his little crystal sphere for him. "It should make an interesting spectacle for your paramour's father, anyway. How does it feel to be powerless, traitor?" 

"You always make these assumptions," I murmured. "I know Caeron taught you better than that." 

The little Mystic's expression went utterly cold. "You don't have the right to speak my father's name." 

I was expecting the kick, so I was able to block it with my arm, but it did drive my own limb into my injured side with some force, and I swore inwardly as I felt shattered bones move— if my lung hadn't been perforated before, it surely was now. Well, if I ended up drowning in my own blood, so be it—the attack had been worth it. 

I now held the means to save Schala right there in my gloved hand, and Flea hadn't even noticed. 

"Let's go," he snapped, gesturing to the Nu. "I can't bear to spend one more minute with this . . . slime." 

I gave him a fang-baring smile. "Don't let the door hit you on the way out," I said—one final prod, because if he had time to think about what I'd been doing, it might spell disaster. 

Flea glared at me, then vanished, taking his Nu with him. Only then did I dare to open my hand and make certain of what I held. 

Fortunately, when I'd made it all those years ago, I'd chosen to create the teleportation talisman in the classical style: a thin wafer of metal with the spell engraved into it. If I'd cast it in the bangle form that Flea preferred, I would never have gotten it off him—especially without being noticed—since I was not exactly a practiced thief. I wouldn't have tried it if I'd thought Belthasar was watching us, but I was certain that Flea wouldn't have entered our cells if he had been able to capture images from the outside. If Belthasar had any sense at all, he would want as little contact between myself and the little Mystic as was practical. 

The spell on the metal wafer needed at least a little native magic to spark it into action, which meant that I couldn't use it right now . . . but Schala could, once we were alone again. 

I closed my eyes so that I could concentrate more completely on the sounds coming from beyond the wall between Schala's cell and my own. Flea didn't bother exchanging words with her, but I could hear the sound of more than one person breathing, plus a bit of foot-shuffling that was probably the Nu. Then that went away again. 

"Are they gone?" I asked Schala. 

"Yes," came the subdued reply. "Janus, are you alright?" 

"I have some broken ribs, I think. Nothing that will kill me, although it is . . . somewhat uncomfortable. When I'm able to do so again, I think I'll re-enchant my armour to offer better resistance to blunt impact." Even if Belthasar wasn't watching us, he might be listening, so I didn't dare say anything of consequence. Sooner or later, Schala would— 

"Your body is so . . . odd . . . that I don't think I can heal you, but I should at least be able to ease your pain," she said. "Take my hand." 

I opened my eyes and turned my head to see her hand sliding through the air-hole that linked our cells. I reached over and clasped it firmly with mine, pressing the talisman into her palm. 

"Don't do anything foolish," I warned. "I can handle quite a lot of pain, if necessary." _Take it and get out,_ I willed her as I relaxed my grip. 

She withdrew her hand again, and I closed my eyes. There. Done. Perhaps I could let go a little, now that I had done everything I could. 

"Janus? Don't fall asleep on me!" 

My eyes flickered open again as I felt fingers brush against my face, feather-light. She was crouched beside me, with the talisman gripped in one hand. Schala. 

"What are you doing?" I whispered harshly. "Do you want it all to be for nothing?" 

"I will not leave without you." She only breathed the words, but in her eyes . . . were those tears? 

"I'm not worth crying over," I told her, but that only made the tears overflow and spill down her cheeks. 

"It amazes me," she breathed, "that someone so intelligent can be so foolish. If not for your kindness and your strength, I . . . I would have—" 

"Hush." Somehow I managed to raise a hand that felt as though it were made of lead, and brush her tears away. "You can't help me anyway—the limitations on that—" I nodded at the talisman that she still held loosely in her hand. "—are the same as the ones on my usual teleportation spell." 

"I think I can see a way around that," Schala said. "But you will have to stand up." 

I wasn't going to be able to convince her to leave—not that it was impossible, but it would require more strength than I had, just now. And so I gritted my teeth and slid myself upward along the surface of the wall, ignoring the way my vision greyed and wavered, until my legs were straight. 

"Now what?" I whispered to Schala, who had risen with me. 

"Stand on my feet." 

I blinked at her, because the words just made no sense. 

"Stand on my feet," she repeated. "Then I will be carrying you. Technically." 

Understanding at last, I chuckled, regretting it instantly as I felt my ribs move in a way they had never been designed for. "And I thought I was the devious one. Very well." 

One agonizing step forward. Schala winced as my weight landed on her, but there was nothing I could do about that. 

"Quickly," I whispered in her ear. 

Reality shuddered, and we were no longer in my cell, but in the main hall of Zeal's royal palace. 

"Get Melchior," Schala commanded a nearby servant who had turned to stare at us. "Quickly, please." 

The man blinked one last time, then turned and ran. 

There was an empty chair only a few steps away from us, and Schala somehow half-led, half-carried me there. I'm not certain I could have made it on my own—all my concentration was focussed on not passing out, and it was getting difficult to breathe. 

"Get out of my way!" said a familiar voice, and the crowd that had been gathering around us parted to reveal Melchior. "Princess—" 

"I am well," Schala said, "but Janus has badly injured himself protecting me. Please help him." 

Dry hands on my bare arm. I waited for the touch of a healing probe, then remembered belatedly that I wouldn't be able to sense it in my present condition. 

"Broken ribs, perforation of and bleeding into the pleural cavity, and complete magical exhaustion," the old man muttered. " _And_ he's still conscious, the crazy, stubborn fool. Tougher than a construct . . . what's this? No, I'd better patch the gross physical damage first . . ." He voiced a spell, and I gritted my teeth and endured while shattered bone and bits of flesh crawled around inside me. But it did slowly become easier to breathe, and after a while, the pain of the ribs subsided into the dull ache of flesh that was technically whole but annoyed at the abuse it had recently been subjected to. Melchior muttered another spell, and if I hadn't been so damnably tired, I might have wrenched away from him, but as it was, I didn't realized what he was doing until his face went white and he took a step back from me. 

"Impossible," the old man said slowly. "You can't be—a clone would show signs of forced growth, and you . . . who _are_ you?" 

"A ghost of something that, in this world, was fortunately not meant to be," I said. 

"What are you two talking about?" Schala asked. 

"Melchior just discovered why I've been refusing to use my family name," I said dryly. 

" _The king! Make way for the king!_ " 

People scrambled out of the way to admit Marus—and an escort of two Lashers—to the little circle of open space around us . . . which was now becoming indistinguishable, in terms of population density, from the rest of the area, I noted with something approaching amusement. 

"Schala . . ." The king drew his daughter into a tight embrace. "Are you well?" 

"A few bruises," the blue-haired girl murmured. "Nothing worse . . . thanks to Janus, who rescued me. Again. He was the one who was hurt." 

Melchior cleared his throat. "Your Majesty, there are . . . certain things we should discuss," he said, with a sidelong glance at me. 

"In private," I amplified. "In the meanwhile, I would suggest that you give orders to have Dalton killed on sight, should he be foolish enough to show his face on the floating islands. I doubt he will, but I came to the conclusion some time ago that it's impossible to overestimate that man's stupidity—it's the only thing he has that's larger than his ego." 

Marus gave me a narrow-eyed, suspicious look, but all he said was, "We will adjourn to my study, then. Can you walk?" 

"He shouldn't," Melchior said. "Of course, he shouldn't be conscious, either." 

I stood up, hoping that no one was noticing how much of my weight was still being supported by the back of the chair. "I'm well enough," I grumbled. 

Schala sighed. "Janus, sometimes you can be the most incredibly _frustrating_ . . . Will you let _me_ help you, at least, or would that be a mortal blow to your pride?" She didn't wait for a reply, just took my arm and pulled it across her shoulders. I hesitated, but ended up allowing myself to lean on her. Doing otherwise . . . even I could see that that would have hurt her. 

We made a bit of a parade of it—Marus, Melchior, Schala, myself, and the two Lashers. Fortunately it wasn't very far to the royal chambers, because every step was a trial of endurance for me. 

Marus' study was materially identical with my father's, and even though I'd been expecting it, I found myself having to stop for a moment in the doorway to regain control of my emotions. My memories . . . they were thick here, crowding about me like ghosts that I lacked the strength to fight off just now. 

I forced myself not to slump as I took the deeply padded chair Marus kept for visitors—Schala and Melchior were going to have to stand, but neither protested. I didn't touch the surface of the king's desk, crowded as it was with neat stacks of paper. 

Marus entered last—I think he may not have wanted me at his back, even in the state I was clearly in—and closed the door, shutting out the Lashers, who had taken up station on either side of it. He sat down across from me, in a chair that had developed signs of wear and sagging upholstery despite the maintenance spells it bore, shifted some papers so that he could prop his elbows on the desk, and looked at the three of us over his clasped hands. 

"Melchior, you first." 

"Yes, your Majesty." The old man shot me a sidelong glance. "As per your request yesterday, I made use of the first available opportunity to take a genetic scan of your daughter's new consort. I expected to have to spend some time in my laboratory before having the answers you sought, since unraveling magic-induced codon migration over an unfamiliar base is not a straightforward process. However, to my considerable surprise, none of that proved to be necessary." He licked his lips nervously before continuing. "I know this man's underlying genetic pattern, although I haven't seen it in nearly a decade. Indeed, I doubt I could ever forget it." 

"Then who is he?" 

"I don't know." 

"Melchior—" 

"The person whose genes he bears is _dead_ ," the Guru said. "You were present at the funeral yourself—we both handled the body—and even if he had lived, he would still be a child! I thought . . . some kind of ensouled clone . . . but I can't see signs of any of the normal forced-growth methods having been used . . ." 

"Stop babbling and get to the point," Marus snapped. 

"Yes, your Majesty." Melchior shook his head. "There is no easy way to say this. Biologically speaking, Lord Janus is . . . your unborn son." 

" _What?!_ " 

"I was the one who monitored Queen Aleana during her pregnancy," Melchior continued as though he hadn't heard the exclamation. "I remember the fetus' genetic code quite clearly. There can be no mistake." 

All three of them were staring at me. Schala had her hand to her mouth, and her eyes were impossibly wide. Melchior was frowning, almost glaring at me. Marus . . . didn't seem to have come out of shock yet. 

_Might as well finish this,_ I thought, and slowly began to take off my left glove. When it was out of the way, I removed the narrow gold band from my finger and deposited it on the desk between myself and the king, who picked it up and examined it slowly, comparing it to the identical ring which he wore. 

"This _is_ my family's Great Seal," he said slowly. "Not a duplicate, unless it was made at the same time as the original—I can sense how the spells on it have aged. You will explain this . . . impossibility." 

I met the cool blue eyes without flinching. "They are the same object . . . and yet at the same time, they are not." How much was known, here, about the theory of Time and dimensions? In my own world, Gaspar—who might not exist here, or at least I had yet to see any evidence of his presence— had laid what theoretical groundwork was available in the era of Zeal, and that had been . . . incomplete. 

"That makes no sense," Marus snapped before I could decide how to proceed. 

I snarled right back. "On the contrary, it makes perfect sense. Our two universes share the same history up to a point somewhere between Schala's birth and your wife's death. In my world, she and your son survived— _I_ survived—but Zeal did not, and neither did you. The ring you're holding in your hand belonged to my father, who died when I was five years old. I retrieved it from the floor of the ocean, where it lay among the remains of this very palace, after wreaking my vengeance on the creature that had destroyed my home." 

" _Your_ world? Two universes? And I suppose you and _only_ you have the means of travelling between them? How . . . preposterous." 

I laughed harshly. "Exactly. Do you think I'm stupid enough to try to trick you with such an implausible lie? I'll gladly lay out the magical theory of time and dimension travel for you, and show you the spells I used. With the Sun Stone's help, you might even be able to cast them well enough to strand yourself outside of Time—" 

"Stop it, both of you!" 

I think Marus was just as startled as I was to hear Schala speak so forcefully . . . but there she was, glaring at us both, with her hands planted on her hips. 

However, she wasn't able to hold the stern expression for long. It softened into a sort of wistful smile as she said, "Honestly, you two are so much alike that I don't know why I didn't manage to guess who Janus was! Father, he isn't lying. I have _seen_ his world—just a little of it, but enough to convince me that it is real and not some sort of elaborate illusion. Janus, Father is just trying to—" 

"Protect his kingdom," I said wearily. "And you. Neither of which I would _ever_ harm." 

Another thoughtful blue-eyed stare from Marus. "Perhaps you wouldn't, at that." 

"Not 'perhaps'," I said flatly. "I am not your son—not even what he would have become, had he survived, since the hell I went through couldn't exist in this world . . . but this is still my home, and Schala is still . . . very nearly the only person I have ever truly loved." And didn't that sound sappy? Schala herself was looking at me as though she wasn't certain what to make of the remark. 

"I am not your sister, Janus. Whatever memories you have . . . I don't share them." 

"The memories aren't really the important part." My drain headache seemed to be getting worse, and I found myself rubbing my forehead with my ungloved hand. "Indeed, they are part of the reason why I never spoke to my sister about my feelings for her. I was always afraid that if I tried to get too close to her, after everything we had been through, I would only make her remember that I hadn't been able to protect her. And so I left her to the man she thought she loved, and walked away without saying another word . . ." Too late, my sluggish mind realized what I was saying—and not even to Schala in private, but in front of two other people!—and I forced myself to stop, compressing my lips into a thin line lest anything else escape them. 

Schala was staring at me, and blushing bright red, her mouth forming a soundless O. Philosophically, I told myself that she at least didn't seem disgusted by my semi-involuntary revelation, and that surely had to count for something. 

"It makes little difference in any case," I said after taking a moment to gather my scattered thoughts. "Even if my feelings . . . were returned, a long-term relationship between myself and any normal human would only result in pain for both of us. And this is not the time for me to be considering a future stretching beyond the next few months." I tapped Flea's collar with my forefinger. Melchior shot me a sharp look, and I nodded slightly. _Yes. I know._

Marus watched the by-play with narrowed eyes, but all he said was, "Perhaps we had best put this aside for the present, in favour of you telling us where you have both been." 

I explained, briefly and precisely, about Algetty, Dalton, Belthasar and his secret base . . . and Flea, although keeping that part brief was . . . difficult. Marus stopped me in mid-narrative at one point to order what was left of Zeal's security forces into action, although I hadn't bothered to ask him to do so—it might not have been half an hour yet, but I had no doubt that Belthasar had plans in place to deal with discovery, and I rated the possibility that he hadn't found out about our escape within minutes of when Flea had reported back to him . . . minute. The caverns built into the base of the floating islands would be either protected or empty by now. 

When I was done, there was momentary silence. Then, "Was Belthasar also responsible for your . . . previous absence?" Marus asked his daughter, and I shot Schala an incredulous look, gritting my teeth as the sharp motion of my head made my vision grey out around the edges. 

"You never told anyone?" I asked her sharply. 

"I was waiting for Father to wake up," came the soft reply. "I apologize—you are quite correct that it was a foolish thing for me to do." 

I muttered a curse, only realizing after I received two sharp glances and a blush that I had spoken in High Zeala and thus been understood by my audience. I forced myself to pretend that that had been what I'd intended all along, but I don't think any of them bought it. Melchior certainly didn't. 

"Your Majesty, Lord— _Prince_ —Janus should really be in bed. Today's events would have taxed him severely even without the constant drain on his magic. A less stubborn man would have fainted by now. He's . . . rather like his father in that respect." 

"I don't have time to lounge around in bed," I snapped, pinning the old man with a glare. 'There's too much to be done." 

"However, it can all be done by others," Marus said, holding out my ring to me. I took it, slipped it back on my finger and pulled my glove on overtop, but not because I was giving in. 

"You have no other experienced military commanders," I snapped. "Unless this world is amazingly different from mine, Zeal hasn't been to war since the floating islands were raised from the surface. You'll need what I know." 

"But not yet . . . and you should be rested when that time comes," Marus said. "Melchior will help you back to your room." That last sentence was spoken in a tone that made of it a royal command. 

"We should talk, in any case," the old man added. 

I scowled. "Very well—but I'm capable of walking on my own." 

And I did, stubbornly, barely allowing myself the luxury of leaning against walls or furniture even when that option was available. I finished by dragging myself slowly up the steps leading into my room and collapsing onto the bed, glaring, as I did so, at Melchior, who had been hovering over me the entire time. 

"Is it so amusing to watch me when I'm in this state?" I snapped irritably. 

The old man rolled his eyes. "I'm trying to figure out how I can _help_ you . . . your Highness. However, the cause of your weakness is so unusual that I'm making little headway." 

"Explain that," I ordered—if he was going to grant me the deference implicit in that "highness", I was going to milk it for all I was worth. 

"The short version is, your muscles _should_ be functioning normally," Melchior said. "Your nerves, however, don't seem to be transmitting impulses with sufficient force . . . Your feet are numb, aren't they?" 

"Not completely." I willed that to be true as I spoke the words. _I should have been able to figure this out for myself, just from that . . ._ but my mind wasn't functioning at its best, and I knew it. "The easiest way to fix things would be to get this damned collar off me, but I assume that if you could do that, you would have done it already." 

The Guru nodded. "I tried, when I examined you earlier, but I couldn't even find the catch." 

"Flea probably put some kind of mind-bend on it. He's good at that sort of thing. I'm just going to have to convince him to take it off me himself. In the meanwhile . . . Get me some paper and something to write with." I sat up. My mind might not be functioning as well as it should, but it was doing well enough to produce a solution to my most immediate problem. 

Melchior brought them, and watched, bemusement written clear on his face, as I set down the spell diagram. I forced myself to ignore him, although I didn't let the end of my pen tap against an exposed fang-tip when I paused to think, as I might have if I'd been alone. Even having to work out the changes in my head, it only took me perhaps ten minutes to write the thing out in full. 

The old man plucked the sheet of paper from me as I set the pen down, and I let him, watching as he read and his face went whiter and whiter. 

"What . . . do you expect me to do with this?" was the tentative question that came after several minutes. 

"That spell should function as a neural booster for my physiology, shouldn't it?" I pointed out. 

"Well, yes, but—" 

I gave the Guru a fang-baring smile. "I know exactly what I'm proposing to do to myself. The spell on which the one you're holding was based was used by the people I grew up among to torture captured enemies. Even with the alterations I've made, I expect this to hurt, but I'm not going to spend what may end up being the last months of my life lying in bed waiting for others to solve my problems." 

"So you do know about . . . your likely lifespan. I wasn't quite sure." The old man was looking anywhere but at me, I noted. 

"The Melchior of my world warned me once, many years ago, that losing my magic would be an unpleasantly prolonged death sentence," I said with a shrug. "Which means that I need to get to Flea as soon as possible." 

The old man looked down at the sheet of paper he was holding again. "It isn't a very strong spell in this form . . . Hmph. Multiple instances, strategically spaced, I suppose. I wish I knew enough about shadow spells to reduce the strain on your body. This will take a few hours, and in the meantime you really should rest—you won't get much of that while you're carrying this around." 

I scowled. "Very well. This once." 

I waited until he left the room before I permitted myself to lie back on the bed again, however. At some point, I drifted into an uneasy doze despite myself. 

* * *

_The skeleton chittered at me, bony fingers entwined in the unraveling braid of deep violet hair that still clung to its skull. Tatters of royal robes were draped about its shoulders, and one otherwise bare phalange was banded with gleaming gold._

_It stepped toward me and made as though to perch itself on the edge of my bed. I raised a hand to gesture it away, but froze when I realized it was a child's hand, soft and powerless. The purely human hand of a pampered prince of Zeal._

_I tried to sit up, scrabbling at the blankets among which I lay, shivering as I realized that they were cold and clammy and teeming with marine life that shouldn't have been able to survive here in the open air . . . Was this the open air? I couldn't see . . . couldn't breathe . . . the collar was weighing me down so that I could barely move, and I couldn't hear the Black Wind, but I knew it had to be roaring . . ._

The dream shouldn't have been enough to cause me more than a moment's disquiet. I'd dealt with hundreds of revenants of various sorts while I'd been living in the sixth century, so one more walking skeleton should have been beneath my notice, even if it had appeared to be my father's. And yet, when I woke, I was shivering despite the spells that should have kept me warm. 

It was possible, I thought as I lay staring at the ceiling, that my not-quite-functional nervous system was sending me false signals . . . but I suspected that the real problem had been those last few seconds when I'd half-realized that I was in the ruins of my own world's sunken Zeal. 

_I don't want this world to go the same way,_ I realized. _And not just for Schala's sake. For the sake of everything—of everyone—of the man who isn't my father and the people he is doing his best to guard. For the sake of the Earthbound, even: how many of them died in the Fall? There must be some way to reconcile the inhabitants of this world, to bring humanity back together without requiring a disaster to set the stage . . ._

I was getting soft. I couldn't even use the excuse that having the shadow of death looming over my shoulder was making me look for ways to atone for the things I had done in my youth, so that I might return to the Sea of Dreams in peace, because I knew this had started long before Flea had . . . collared . . . me. 

_It's about time._ I wasn't even sure whose ghost whispered that into my mind—Lucca's? Gil's? My sister's? It seemed like something that any of them could easily have said. 

There was a soft noise from somewhere near the foot of the bed, and I immediately propped myself up on an elbow to look around—careless assassins make noises like that. 

" _Mrrp._ " Green eyes blinked at me, reflecting the dim moonlight streaming through the window, and I sighed. 

"Alfador," I murmured, sinking back onto the mattress. "My apologies: the press of events made me forget all about you. I'm afraid you'll have to come here if you want me to pet you—I need to conserve my strength in case that assassin _does_ show up, so moving around very much would be . . . unwise." 

The kitten began to pad toward the head of the bed, although he seemed uncertain, stopping often to sniff at me. I could understand his confusion: I looked, sounded, and smelled the same, but my magic, to which he was sensitive, was gone. But he did eventually make it all the way up and began kneading my pillow with tiny kitten paws. I felt my mouth stretch into something that was almost a smile as I watched him coil himself into a softly purring lump mere inches from my nose. 

The second time I drifted off to sleep, I had no dreams, or at least none that I remembered. 

I was woken again by the sound of someone on the stairs, and opened my eyes to discover a shaft of sunlight falling across the bed. Slowly, I sat up. Young Alfador woke as well, and I watched with tolerant amusement as he pounced on strands of my hair that were being shifted by my movements. 

The person on the stairs was Melchior. He looked tired, and had some sort of cloth-muffled package under his arm. He seemed relieved to drop his burden on the bed, where it landed with a muffled clank. 

"Those took me . . . rather longer than I expected," the old man admitted. 

I was already unwrapping the cloth, and—"No wonder," I muttered, for there were fully two dozen circles of black metal inside, ranging in size from finger rings to a belt of woven strands. I examined one in particular, and frowned. "Another collar?" 

"I'm afraid so. You don't absolutely _have_ to wear it, but it will reduce the effect if you don't—I calculated the optimal spacing—" 

I scowled and parted my hands—I'd already determined where the hinge and the clasp were. At least the damned thing was narrow enough to keep my neck from becoming uncomfortably stretched. I gathered my hair in one hand to keep it out of the way, fitted the collar into place with the other, and gritted my teeth as I forced it shut . . . but nothing could have prepared me for the pain that shot down my spine and up into the back of my skull. Embarrassingly, I think I may even have whimpered as it struck. I forced myself to endure, but it never truly receded—I just became more accustomed to it, until I was able to focus on something else . . . such as reaching for the belt. 

Melchior didn't speak, or move to stop me, as I slowly sorted the rings and clasped them into place. The second and subsequent ones weren't nearly as much of a shock to my system as the first: there's a point at which the level of pain simply becomes irrelevant, and I reached it early on. 

"I don't envy you your strength of will," the Guru said when I was done. 

"Are you saying that, in my place, you _would_ spend the rest of your life lying in bed and hoping that someone caught up with Flea and tortured information about the collar out of him in time to save your life?" I asked with a snort. 

"It's very likely that I would. There is a point at which normal people just give up, you know. Here." 

I stared, nonplussed, at the vial in his hand. "What's this?" 

"You may be able to fight now, but I doubt that hideous pain is any better for your concentration than the combination of weakness and a drain headache. This will take away some of that pain. It isn't addictive or otherwise damaging, although it will probably make your feet numb again. If it works, I'll get you more when you need it." 

I accepted the vial and tilted it back and forth, watching bubbles move lazily through the dark, viscous substance inside. "Why bother? It isn't as though you owe me anything." 

"The king ordered it, saying that he needed you clear- headed . . . and I agree with him. Your perspective here, as an outsider, is uniquely valuable." 

I ignored the little twinge of additional, purely mental pain that ran through me at the word _outsider_ , and considered the vial instead. I could refuse it, but that wouldn't be a particularly useful action—it wouldn't even salve my pride, not really. 

My hands were steady as I pulled the cork, and I gulped the ugly, viscous stuff down, grimacing at the taste, which rather resembled the smell of a five-day-old corpse. 

"You could have at least _tried_ to make it cherry-flavoured," I said dryly. Melchior raised his eyebrows and snorted. 

"I'll see what I can do about that when I manufacture the next dose, _your Highness_. Is it working?" 

I considered the quality of my pain, which did seem to be receding. "I believe so. Thank you," I added, although I had to force the seldom-used words out. 

"You're welcome," the old man said easily. "His Majesty intends to convene a conference of war at the eighth hour, and he wants you there." 

"Very well." I rose from my bed, noting as I did so that my feet were indeed partially numb. Truth be told, my entire body seemed to be swathed in something touch- deadening . . . but I would live with it if it meant keeping my pain at its current dull-ache level. 

Perhaps the numbness was the reason it took me a moment to notice that the ground was shaking under my feet. However, I couldn't mistake the momentary accompanying sensation in the pit of my stomach. 

For just a moment or two, the floating islands of Zeal had been falling, and the implications were . . . disturbing. 

"The Sun Stone shouldn't be drained enough yet to permit that to happen," I said when things had steadied again, probing for answers, and Melchior nodded. 

"For an instant, it seemed that all of the Stone's power was being drawn into a single spell. Somewhere down on the surface, I think." 

"Hmph." My fingers absently traced the edge of the steel crescent that hung at my hip. "How did the invasion of Belthasar's lair go?" 

Raised eyebrows. "I had forgotten that his Majesty sent you off to bed before the reports could come back. They found nothing: everyone was gone, down to the last construct, and everything of possible importance that they hadn't taken with them had been smashed or burned beyond repair. We can't even tell what some of it was. I assume you're asking because you think Belthasar is the one depleting the Sun Stone. I suspect you're quite right about that, but I don't see what can be done about it." 

"Tracking him down and killing him should put an end to everything he's doing," I pointed out. "Little though you may like that course of action." 

"It's true, Belthasar was . . . a colleague," Melchior said. "And while I can't condone his present actions, killing him does seem a bit extreme . . ." 

"Mercy is a luxury we may not be able to afford," I said flatly. "That's one of the problems with civilization: people forget that sometimes you need to prioritize survival . . ." 

"You truly have been through hell, haven't you?" The look the old man gave me was— 

"I don't want your pity," I growled. 

"On the contrary, you have my sincere admiration. And his Majesty's as well, I think." 

"Hmph." Was it really so wrong, I wondered, to feel just the tiniest bit of pride at that? Many are the men who never gain their fathers' respect. 

A soft chime sounded from somewhere in the vicinity of Melchior's belt, and the old man went through his pockets until he came up with a communications talisman. His eyebrows twitched as he saw the glowing symbol floating above it, and his hand moved instantly to activate it. 

"Your Majesty?" 

_"Melchior, I need you here,"_ said Marus' voice from the thin wafer of metal. _"_ Now. _"_

"What's going on?" I asked sharply. 

_"You are with Janus? Good. Bring him as well. I am at the Shrine of the Flame."_

The Shrine of the Flame . . . which should still have been sealed . . . and an immensely powerful spell . . . 

I shouldered past Melchior and ran for the door, nearly breaking my neck as I forgot I couldn't use magic to control my fall after I vaulted over the railing that rimmed the stairs. Reflexes predating my ability to cast flight spells saved me, however, and I landed in a deep crouch instead of a broken heap. And if the path between my room and the Shrine of the Flame hadn't been relatively short and straightforward, I probably would have tried it again as necessary. 

Marus and Schala were waiting together just outside the door. Some of the palace staff were loitering around as well, although they were staying a respectful distance away. 

"The seal's broken," I said as I approached them—not a question, but Schala nodded anyway. "Has anyone been inside?" 

"I entered briefly," Marus said. "However, I did not do so quickly enough." 

I tilted my head, asking the question without speaking. The king seemed to understand, because he answered it. 

"The Frozen Flame is gone." 

I cursed—at length, elaborately, and without particularly caring which language I was doing it in. If I'd had any power to put behind the words, the stone floor under my feet would probably have bubbled into magma. By the time I ran down, Schala was blushing quite considerably, Marus was watching me with a hint of a smile on his face, and Melchior had puffed up the final flight of stairs to join us. 

"For once, I agree with you," the king said when I ran out of words. 

"I presume this was Belthasar's work," I said. 

"His signature is detectable inside," Marus agreed. "Although there is no hint as to where he might have taken the Flame." 

"For that, I would suggest that you look down," I said. "The creature whose power Belthasar intended to tap through the Flame is located roughly a mile below the seabed and directly under the palace. If he wakes it from dormancy, there will be hell to pay, so we need to move quickly." 

"This creature . . . does it have a name?" 

"Lavos," I growled. 

"Lavos," Marus repeated, frowning, and for a moment I saw the ghost of something . . . haunted . . . in his eyes. "So that is what I have been trying to soothe all these years. Hmmm. Well, I shall get the search started." 

He turned away from me just as I felt a slender hand come to rest on my elbow. 

"Janus, are you . . . all right?" Schala asked me. 

"For the time being," I replied. "Were you worried about me?" 

"Yes, I was. I could not tell how badly you were hurt, because you are far too stubborn to admit that you are anything less than healthy . . ." 

"I spent much of my early life in places where admitting to weakness could have gotten me killed," I said. 

A long pause. Then . . . 

"This is so strange," Schala said softly. "Knowing that you see me as your sister, and yet I . . . I cannot—" 

I shook my head. "I don't see you as my sister," I corrected. _Most of the time._ "I'm still at least that rational, I hope! Nor do I expect you to think of me as your brother." Even my protectiveness was . . . more than brotherly, although I wasn't about to bring that up if she didn't. 

"I was afraid . . . that that would hurt you, although I can see, now, that I was wrong." 

"I'm not easily hurt." I stroked a stray lock of hair back from her face, although between my glove and Melchior's potion, I could barely tell that I was touching her. 

"I made something for you," she added abruptly. "Here." 

I blinked as she held up something that jingled softly— a ring of talismans? 

"They require no magic to activate," Schala was saying. "I . . . It took me all night." 

"Thank you," I said as I accepted the ring . . . although I felt the distinct temptation to kiss her, instead. "What are the activation patterns?" 

"Touch all four corners, starting from the lower right and moving counterclockwise, then the center," came the prompt reply. "They are all the same in that." 

I flipped through the metal wafers, discovered a flight spell, a short-distance teleport, miscellaneous healings, protections, and enhancements . . . "You couldn't have done all of this in one night." 

"Some of them . . . I made them for the Earthbound villagers. I still intend to give them to them when you no longer have need of them." 

Thus providing the Earthbound with some measure of equality with their Enlightened cousins . . . An idea was nibbling at my brainstem, but darted away when I tossed out a metaphorical net to draw it into my conscious mind. I would have liked to grind my teeth, because I had a feeling that the fugitive thought had been important, but hopefully it would return when I needed it. I had to discipline myself to retain some hope, despite the unpleasantness of my current circumstances. 

"Janus?" 

"Mmh?" 

"What happens now?" 

"We wait for your father's scouts to come back," I said. "And make plans." _And pray,_ I might have added if I had believed the Entity ever listened to anything humans tried to tell it. If Lavos erupted before I could get this damned collar off . . . _Don't think about it._

"You intend to go after him yourself, don't you? Belthasar, I mean." 

"I don't think there's a choice," I said. "Someone is going to have to lead the constructs that attack his base, and I doubt any of the security officers have the necessary experience. And I need to be there to make certain that Flea is captured alive." 

"What are you going to do with him . . . after?" 

"After I get this _thing_ off my neck, you mean?" I frowned, fingering the collar. "I must admit that I hadn't thought that far ahead. Kill him, I suppose, since I don't see that there's much else I _can_ do with him. The only reason he ended up here in the first place was that I didn't do it properly the last time I tried." 

"But I thought . . . You said he was your friend." She was clearly unhappy, looking down and shuffling her feet— they weren't visible underneath the edge of her robe, but I could hear soft scuffing sounds. 

_And here we go again._ "Has it occurred to you that he might _want_ to die?" I asked. "Right now, Flea's only reason for living is to get revenge on me. Without that, he would have gone to join his lover a long time ago. Killing him would be . . . a kindness." 

"His lover . . . whom you also killed." 

I made a frustrated noise, deep in my throat. "Schala, there is a great deal that you don't know about the world that Flea and I came from. Flea's people were out to slaughter the entire human race, and they weren't interested in reason or negotiation— there had been too much blood spilled already. And for almost twenty years, I _helped_ them, because I was hoping to use them against Lavos when the time came. I didn't care what would happen after I got my revenge, and so I endangered _everything_. Killing my former friends, whom I'd grown up with . . . that was part of my penance. _There was no other way._ " 

Silence. Then, "This is difficult." The words were little more than whispered. "I . . . want to believe you. I really do. But it . . ." 

"Believing in the necessity of violence makes you uncomfortable," I said quietly. "Just as trying to justify my actions makes me." 

"Oh." And that wasn't even a whisper—more like a breath, a thin thread of sound. "I must sound like a self-righteous little fool to you whenever we speak of these things." 

"Since I probably sound like a heartless monster to you on the same occasions, I think we're even," I replied, and Schala smiled. 

"I think it may be because we are so different that being with you feels so _right_." A slender hand found its way into mine, and I forced myself to keep my grip light, knowing that, given the numbness of my flesh, I might easily crush her fingers without noticing if I didn't pay attention. "Father will no doubt summon us to confer with him soon, but in the meanwhile, will you walk in the gardens with me?" 

"It would be my pleasure," I said, resisting the sudden and unexpected temptation to raise our joined hands to my lips. That would have been an act of courtship, and even if I suspected it would be welcomed, I was so afraid that it would be a bad idea . . . so afraid that I would end up hurting her. _Even if I survive and manage to save this place, will I be able to stay?_ Should _I stay? What place would there be for me in a world at peace?_ And there were the issues that would arise out of my peculiar physical condition, which meant that there were things I would never be able to share with her . . . 

And why, I asked myself, was I brooding about a future that might never be? _I need to remember how_ not _to look forward—how to let my plans carry me only so far and no farther. Flea and Belthasar first, then the rest._

In a sense, I suppose it was an abdication of responsibility . . . but I forced myself to believe that there would be time. Time to think, time to choose. 

I should have known better than to expect things to be that simple. 

* * *

The meeting later that morning was a grim one, and involved not just myself, Melchior, and the royal family, but the High Council entire: the Lord Mayors of Enhasa and Kajar, the curator of the North Palace, and the director of the Sun Palace. Normally Dalton (or one of his human subordinates who had remained loyal to the crown) would have been there too, to represent the security forces, but at my insistence the most senior construct-soldier we could locate had come instead . . . which had led to the discovery that the palace had no chairs designed to accommodate a gargoyle's wings. Fortunately, the creature seemed to have run into this problem before, and had ended a nascent argument about whether servants should be sent to search for a stool for her by reversing one of the chairs and straddling it. 

"I have brought you here today because we—the entire nation of Zeal—have been betrayed," Marus said. "Belthasar, the former Guru of Reason, has stolen the Frozen Flame. In addition, he and Dalton, our former Head of Security, have formed an alliance which has committed numerous acts of violence against my daughter, her consort, and the Earthbound of Algetty." 

Suddenly four people—all the humans in the room who hadn't known what was coming—began to talk at once. Marus propped his elbows on the table and laced his fingers together, waiting it out. I spent the brief interval observing the gargoyle at the foot of the table, noting how she watched us all without ever meeting anyone's eyes. How much of that, I wondered idly, came from a desire not to be noticed, and how much from the inferiority complex that Zeal took care to engrave into all of its constructs? _Such a waste._

Finally the frenzied gabbling slowed to a near-stop, and Marus was able to continue without having to shout down the Lord Mayor of Kajar, who had a particularly loud voice. 

"We have traced the rebels to an undersea dome almost directly below the palace. They must be rooted out before they commit any further acts of terrorism." 

"That may be difficult, with the security forces leaderless," the curator of the North Palace pointed out with a slight smirk. If I hadn't remembered the man and his disdain for Dalton and his men from my childhood, I might have thought he was a mole working for Belthasar, but as things stood, I suspected he was merely a fool. 

"Lord Janus will take over command for the time being, until I have time to select a permanent replacement." 

I shot Marus a sidelong glare—I didn't mind taking the position, since it might be useful to me, but it would have been nice to be warned in advance! All I received in return, however, was the faintest of faint smiles. _You want to see what I'll do with this. Very well. Let me show you._

"The security forces alone may not suffice to deal with Belthasar," I said harshly. "You—Teshon, isn't it?" The name of the North Palace's curator surfaced from somewhere deep in my memory. "I want an inventory of everything under your care that could possibly be used as a weapon." 

He recoiled . . . although I noted out of the corner of my eye that the gargoyle looked amused. "Are you aware of what you're asking for? Some of those . . . things . . ." 

"Have the potential to destroy the world," I said impatiently. "I know. I also already have some idea of what's down in your domain's third subbasement. Giving me that list reduces the chance that I will order the use of something particularly devastating because I don't understand the potential consequences." 

"You could not possibly know what is in our keeping," Curator Teshon snapped, recovering. 

I smiled thinly and closed my eyes, the better to concentrate past the dull ache in my skull. "As you emerge from the stairway into the third subbasement level, the second case to your right in the first row contains three talismans carved from some dark wood and accompanied by the cryptic notation _vegetation transform_ , am I correct?" I opened my eyes to see that Teshon had gone white again. 

"You _do_ know . . . but how . . . ?" 

"It's a long story," I said. "However, you may rest assured that your security has not been breached." Marus, I noted, was watching me with the faintest of faint smiles on his face again. Teshon just looked confused and apprehensive. "Get me that list," I added to push my original point home, and then raked the rest of the table with a cold glare. "I expect all of you to cooperate with me until this is over, is that understood?" 

"Why should I do anything for an arrogant upstart like you?" The Lord Mayor of Kajar was turning a little red in the face. 

"Because I ask you to." Marus didn't bother to raise his voice. "Janus now holds the safety of Zeal in his hands, and in matters regarding it, he speaks with my authority. Is that understood?" 

Nods all around, accompanied by sour expressions. 

"Good. Now, if I may ask, what is the state of the Sun Stone?" 

"I'm afraid it's bad, your Majesty," said the Sun Palace Director. "It experienced a brief but massive drain this morning. We have less than a month left." 

That grim news caused silence to fall for a moment. 

"You will submit your plans for dealing with the Stone's exhaustion in writing," Marus said after a lengthy pause. "I welcome all ideas—even foolish ones." 

A murmur of _Yes, your Majesty,_ moved down the table and broke against the gargoyle's silence. What did she think of all this? 

"Does anyone have any further business?" Marus raked the table with a blue-eyed look. "No? Then I declare this meeting at an end." 

People pushed their chairs back and rose to their feet, stretching and muttering. I remained seated and tried to catch the gargoyle's eye, but she kept her gaze carefully on the table as she stood, so I had to resort to addressing her openly. 

"Sergeant Vaie, I want to speak to you." 

"Yes, my lord," came the immediate, submissive reply. 

Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed that Schala, who was now standing beside my chair, was frowning at me. I reached over to capture her hand in mine, and was half-surprised when she let me. 

"I need to know what I have to work with," I explained gently. "It shouldn't take too long." 

A hesitation, then a sigh. "We will talk later," came the gentle promise, which left me wondering what it was that she didn't want to talk to me about in front of the gargoyle—everyone else was either leaving or had already left. "Don't strain yourself—you know you are not well." 

"Don't worry," I told her. "I'm not that fragile." 

She drew her fingers from mine, but they lingered for a moment, caressing the leather of my glove in a way that I wished I could feel. After that she left, pausing to glance over her shoulder as she stood in the doorway, then stepping outside and closing it firmly behind her, leaving me alone with the gargoyle . . . who still refused to look up. 

"Is the surface of the table that interesting, Sergeant?" I asked dryly. 

"No, my lord." 

_You're going to make this as difficult as you can, aren't you?_ "Look at me," I ordered, and her face finally tilted up. "Are you under some kind of orders to avoid looking at a human?" 

"Not orders, my lord. It's . . . just understood that we aren't to do so when not on guard duty." 

I muttered a blistering curse. "Well, it is no longer . . . _understood_. Refer anyone who protests to me." 

Vaie's eyebrow ridges flexed. "My lord, if I may ask . . . why?" 

"Because it could reduce your effectiveness as fighters," I said. "I don't have time for such stupidity." I paused. "What did you think of the conference, Vaie? Answer me honestly." 

A long hesitation. "I expect we're to be sent to deal with Belthasar." 

"We will be, yes." 

The gargoyle flexed her eyebrow ridges again, but said nothing. _Too well-trained._ My Mystics hadn't been nearly this deferential. I wanted . . . _I want Slash back,_ I realized with a certain amount of grim humour. Despite all my protestations to Marus and the others about my combat experience, I could count on my hands the number of military operations I had planned without the assistance of the brilliant Greater Imp. _I'll just have to hope that I absorbed enough from him while I still had him._

"Who do you suggest I take with me?" I prodded. 

"You'll be going yourself, sir?" She reached up to grip her beak the moment the words escaped. 

I chose my own words carefully. "I have a particular interest in one of the people working for Belthasar. I need some information from him, and I need it as soon as possible. So yes, I will be going with you. Don't worry," I added dryly, seeing nascent panic in her eyes. "Despite my current handicap, I'm quite capable of taking care of myself. If you have to bring me back in a coffin, it won't be anyone's fault but my own." 

"Whatever you say, my lord." The panic hadn't really dimmed all that much, though. "As for who you should take . . . it isn't really my place to say." 

"Quit trying to avoid giving me an opinion," I growled. "We are only hours from having this operation take place. I'm not going to be able to learn the strengths and weaknesses of all the troops available to me in that time. You know them already, or you should. You probably also know which of your comrades went with Dalton and made their friends a bad risk for this." 

"Still, my lord, I think it would be wiser for you to consult the human officers—" 

"Do they work closely enough with you to know the individual quirks of each unit? Don't bother to answer," I added. "I can tell just by looking at your expression that you don't believe that's the case. You're pushing perilously close to the edge of insubordination, Sergeant. Answer my original question." 

"Yes, my lord. Without knowing the size of the base I can't be certain, but I would suggest taking two units of Mages and perhaps four of gargoyles. Possibly also some Heckran, if the base is large enough for them to have freedom of movement inside." 

"No Lashers or Thrashers?" I probed. 

Vaie swallowed visibly, but her voice remained steady enough. "The troops Lord Dalton took with him were all of those types, sir. There isn't a Lasher or Thrasher unit that wouldn't have friends on . . . the other side." 

"Hmph. Has Dalton ever bothered to learn how to recognize individual Lashers or Thrashers by sight?" I was feeling the germ of an idea sprouting inside me. 

"Not as far as I know, sir." 

"Can you find a half-dozen individual Lashers who wouldn't be subject to . . . divided loyalties?" 

"I think so, sir." 

"Then that's your next job. You have two hours," I added, deciding that that would probably be enough time for me to study whatever reports Marus had on the base. 

If the only real asset I had was my mind, then I was going to take advantage of Dalton's stupidity. That was all there was to it. 

* * *

Why, I wondered irritably, was the air inside large underwater bubbles always so damnably _humid_? The smaller bubbles I'd used to explore the ruins of my world's fallen Zeal hadn't had such a problem, but here, in the waiting area I'd had created just outside Belthasar's base, the air was so damp that beads of water were condensing on my hair and skin and trickling down the back of my neck underneath Flea's damnable collar, an assault that my self-cleaning spells couldn't deal with. The tickling was almost intolerable, but I forced discipline on myself since I knew I wouldn't be able to reach the affected skin to scratch anyway. 

The fish were fascinated by what we were doing in here. They darted around the edges of the bubble, adding flashes of colour to what was really a rather gloomy area—we were fairly far down, and between the murkiness of the ocean and the overcast grey of the sky, anything outside the range of the light spells inside our little dome of air appeared to be enveloped in deep twilight. 

The four gargoyle squads and the five Lashers Vaie had found for me were mostly sitting on the rocky ground, talking and playing dice or cards. The Mages, by contrast, were diligently at work, two of them guarding me—a necessity I had accepted with little grace—and the rest slowly re-routing an alarm spell so that we could create an opening into Belthasar's lair. I was confident that they would get it eventually, as they'd gotten the three previous ones, but the waiting was getting on my nerves. 

Vaie, by contrast, seemed perfectly content. She'd perched herself on a rock beside the largest dice game, and was whittling at a stick with her claws, occasionally glancing up at the low rock bunker that squatted on the sea floor like a dark grey toad—it even had warts, in the form of the sea life that had begun to accrete on its surface. It was ugly enough to make me wonder about Belthasar's sense of aesthetics. 

Suddenly, one of the Mages who'd been crouched by the wall working on the alarm straightened up and floated over toward me. "We're ready to open it, my lord." 

"Then let's have a look," I said, and followed him back over to where he had been working. Behind me, I could hear Vaie ordering her squads to their feet. 

I nodded to the Mages, and the wall melted away under their hands. One of them stuck his head through for a moment. 

"It appears to be a storeroom, my lord—large enough for all of us and mostly empty." 

I nodded—that was what the intelligence on this place had led us to expect. "We're going in," I told Vaie, who had materialized beside me. 

"Yes, my lord. Krav, Tol—get a move on." 

Two of the gargoyles slipped through the opening and dropped to the floor on the other side. Belthasar had dug quite deeply into the seabed—how deep, we didn't know for certain. The search-spells had been able to map the first two levels, but the complex's central stairwell went on below that. I just hoped that what we knew would be enough. 

The gargoyle scouts signaled the all clear, which made it time for the rest of us to start filing inside . . . into air that was no more than comfortably humid, I noted thankfully. 

The gargoyles efficiently shifted crates to create a narrow pathway that would limit the movements and visual range of anyone entering the room through the door, and the mages fanned out to either side so that they'd be able to attack anyone who entered unexpectedly without getting in each others' way. I nodded to the Lashers. 

"You know what to do," I told them, and received a chorus of assent. 

The filed off down the crate pathway and through the door . . . and then there was once again nothing to do but wait. I settled myself against a wall and tried to appear nonchalant, although in actual fact I was achingly tense. Soon it would be over, one way or the other, because I wasn't going to leave this place without talking to Flea. 

After some indefinite period, the door opened again, and I silently drew my scythe from its hiding place. Vaie blinked at me, and I realized that she had never seen it before. I gave her a fang-baring smile . . . which faded again quickly when I saw that the Lashers were re-entering alone. 

"Dalton isn't here, sir," one of them explained. "Apparently, Belthasar sent him off on an errand a couple of days ago, and he hasn't come back yet." 

Vaie muttered a curse. "Who's in charge of the guards, then?" 

"At the moment, no one, sir," the other Lasher said, and I could hear his smirk even if I couldn't see it. "The fool was drinking on duty, so we slipped a little something into his bottle to help him along. Even if they can wake him, he'll behave like he's sleepwalking—in no fit state to give orders. Sir." 

"It will have to do," I said, fingering the haft of my scythe. "Proceed with the next stage." 

Vaie nodded. 

It was waiting time again, but at least this final period of it didn't last long before Vaie was hailed via her communications talisman. She listened for a moment—and I hoped she was making sense of what was being said, because while I could hear the words the Lasher at the other end was speaking, I couldn't make heads or tails of the jargon he was using—then nodded again. 

"We think we've found this Flea of yours, sir," she said to me. "And the guards don't seem to have noticed yet that their commander is drugged and not just drunk. With your permission, I'm going to start clearing the halls between us and the target." 

"Go ahead," I said, and listened to her talk into her talisman again. With concentration, I was able to extract a bit of information from the coded stream: there were four guardposts between us and Flea, whose occupants would have to be disposed of in sequence. 

The first three went smoothly: original guards relieved by the Lashers who had come with us and sent off on wild goose chases that Dalton wasn't around to countermand. The fourth . . . didn't. 

"I'm sorry, sir. One of the Lashers at the fourth posting recognized one of our people as someone who didn't join up with Dalton. No casualties, but the Thrasher posted with him got away." 

I muttered a curse, although truth be told, I was surprised that this was the first snag we'd hit. Slash would have been impressed. 

"Switch to plan B and deploy in force," I snapped. "Where is Flea?" 

"In that odd-shaped room in the northeast corner of the building—the one we couldn't figure out the use of," came the reply before Vaie turned away. "Well, you heard the man, you maggots! Get moving!" 

I kept my scythe at ready as I strode out into the corridor at the center of the mass of constructs, but there was nothing to fight: the way had already been cleared. My Mage- guards floated in my wake as I headed for Flea's reported position. With the plan blown open by that fleeing Thrasher, we were most likely going to have to confront Belthasar head-on, and we would have a better chance if I could get the damned collar off . . . 

We reached the door, and I quirked my eyebrows at the nearest Mage and nodded at it. He examined it briefly, then shrugged, indicating no locks or alarms, so I opened it and stepped through . . . into candlelight. 

I looked around me incredulously. The room had been finished in smooth-polished black stone. The side walls were studded with niches, in each of which lurked a candle or three. Flea was kneeling in the center of the floor, robes puddled around him, staring at the image on the otherwise mirror-smooth surface of the far wall. He paid no attention to me until I spoke. 

"So you're worshipping him now?" I asked, nodding at the idealized picture of Slash. "I doubt he would have appreciated that." 

"If he were here to scold me, I wouldn't need to do this," Flea said tiredly. "Why are you here, Magus?" 

"Why do you think?" I asked. 

Flea's laugh sounded distinctly hollow. "Tired of being crippled, are you? Well, then, let me put you out of your misery." 

"Or you out of yours," I replied, raising my scythe. 

It should have been an epic battle . . . or at least, that's what I thought afterwards. It _should_ have been an epic battle, two friends turned adversaries meeting and clashing for the last time, but instead it was just as messy and sordid as most of the other fights I'd been in, and complicated by the fact that I had to keep Flea alive. 

I snapped my scythe down, aiming for the back of his head with the flat of the blade, hoping to stun him, and nearly overbalanced when I didn't make contact. I had been prepared for him dodging, but not for his presence simply winking out as my weapon slammed into the floor and sent up a fountain of sparks. _Illusion._ If I'd had my full abilities at my command, I would have known it before making a fool of myself, but instead I just had to put up with Flea's laughter, and dodge the fireball that bounced off the ceiling and nearly hit me in the face. 

Flea was tricky—I knew that—but unfortunately for him, I had the means to negate some of those tricks. In the shadow of my cape, my left hand clenched shut, shattering a tiny glass bauble. Off to my right, Flea, once more visible, froze as he sensed the spell it had held spreading out around us. 

"What in hell did you just do, Magus?" 

I smiled, baring my fangs. "I established a teleport block around this room. Now you can't leave until I'm done with you. Don't waste your time trying to break through it, either— even I would have a hard time with it." 

The flickering light turned Flea's answering grin into something almost grotesque. "That's all right—I wasn't going to leave anyway." His hands had been moving unobtrusively, half- concealed by a fold of his robes, and one forefinger suddenly pointed at me. I didn't even bother to dodge, just let the spell wash over me. 

"Those don't work on me, remember?" I asked. Indeed, the little Mystic had effectively shot himself in the foot on that one: it was because of his predilection for pranks that I had engraved defenses against every Void spell I knew into the steel crescent that rode at my hip, and since those defenses were passive, they still worked despite the loss of my magic. 

" _Damn_ you." The little Mystic shot off to the left . . . and vanished. Illusion, of course. Calmly, I closed my eyes and concentrated on listening. Flea might be able to hold his breath for a certain amount of time, but there was nothing he could do to stop his heartbeat. He was circling and rising . . . He came to a momentary stop behind me, and I spun and stepped to one side, opening my eyes. 

A fireball struck the floor where I had been standing, dulling the polished surface of the stone. Flea cursed. I smiled thinly and, in the instant of time that his anger bought me, activated the flight talisman Schala had given me. I was instantly buoyed up off the floor, and I threw myself forward. I needed to close with Flea and make his use of magic . . . less practical. 

What followed was an awkward game of tag played in a room that was far too small for it. We both spent a lot of time slamming into walls and cursing. Candles tipped over and guttered against stone as they were struck by flailing limbs, or by my scythe. I did manage to draw a line of red down the side of Flea's jaw, but that was more due to luck than skill. 

After a couple of minutes of that, we both dropped to the floor, panting. Abruptly, I stuffed my weapon back into nothingness, on the grounds that it wasn't doing me much good. I needed to _capture_ the little Mystic, not kill him, and sharp blades were only going to get in the way. I needed a distraction, and I stupidly hadn't brought anything in particular for that purpose. _Too used to relying on my magic . . ._

Flea raised his hand and pointed, and I sidestepped quickly, so that the fireball only singed the edge of my cape. _Cape . . ._ I almost laughed. 

The garment had never been intended to be snatched off while moving, and so I wasn't surprised to hear fabric tear in the instant before I threw it at Flea. It wasn't really designed to be treated that way, of course—I'd been introduced to fighting nets as a child under Slash's tutelage, and I knew they had to be weighted symmetrically and, ideally, folded or rolled in a certain way—but the distance was short and I only needed to obscure Flea's vision for a moment, not entangle him. 

I tackled him as he batted it out of the way. Because I was at extreme range for such a manoeuvre, I only caught him around the legs, but that was enough to bring him down. _Wrestling again,_ I thought disgustedly as I tried to claw my way up Flea's body so that I could make better use of my greater weight. _If I'm going to keep doing this, I need to go back to training my unarmed combat skills on a regular basis._

Flea suddenly pushed himself up on one elbow and slammed a fireball directly into my face. I managed to close my eyes in time, and so the damage wasn't severe—more like a heavy sunburn than anything else. The rest was absorbed by my armour of protection spells. It worried me that I couldn't monitor those in my present state—I couldn't afford to have them collapse unexpectedly—but there was nothing I could do about it. 

I offered Flea a rictus grin and jabbed my elbow into his groin, resulting in a curse and an abortive curling-up reflex. That gave me a chance to grab his wrist, raise myself off him a few inches, and slam back down on top of him with his arm pinned between us. 

I'd underestimated either the little Mystic's pain tolerance or his insanity, however: he freed himself from my grip by breaking his own arm and kneeing me in the pit of my stomach. He might even have managed to get to his feet and run away if I hadn't dragged him back down by the hair. He made an odd noise as he crashed back down to the floor, landing on his broken arm. This time, I wrapped my legs around his body, rolled us over so that I could pin him with my weight, and secured the wrist of his good arm with one hand while gripping his throat with the other. 

"A crushed windpipe is an ugly way to die," I told him as he stilled underneath me, our bodies locked together in what was almost a parody of intimate congress. 

Flea gave me a rictus grin of his own. "Are there any pretty ones?" 

"Not that I've ever seen," I admitted. "But if you take this damned collar off me, you won't have to make a first-hand determination about that." 

The little Mystic laughed. "Then you'll just have to kill me, because it can't _be_ taken off. I made it that way intentionally, just in case you managed to pull off something like this." 

I felt my face take on a flat expression. Perhaps it hid the sudden churning of fear in my gut. _Just because he doesn't know a way doesn't mean that there_ is _none,_ I told myself, but I knew my chances of surviving this had just plummeted. 

"Well, then, at least you'll have the consolation of knowing that you'll be joining your lover," I growled, and closed my hand around his larynx. The cartilage made a wet popping sound as I crushed it. 

Flea's lips moved—I presume he was trying to say something, but I have no idea what. The fact that he died with a smile on his face caused me a spasm of rage that brought my fingers even more tightly together, mangling his throat. But even when I wiped my glove clean on his clothing, he managed to look almost serene. 

I took a deep breath, forced control on myself—I was _not_ going to behave like an undisciplined child here, with a dozen constructs no doubt watching from the hallway— and pushed myself to my feet. 

So this was the end at last, I mused, standing over Flea's corpse, staring down at it in the flickering light of the candles. The last of those who had ever truly _known_ me as Magus was dead a second time, and that portion of my history could now be permitted to sink back down into darkness. Why, then, did I suddenly feel nostalgic for those days? Their simplicity, perhaps? I had had only a single goal back then, not a mass of potentially conflicting ones . . . And, of course, no death sentence hanging over my head. 

I smiled crookedly at Slash's image, up there on the wall. "I hope you find each other in the Sea of Dreams," I murmured, and oddly enough, it was true. 

Picking up my cape, I scowled at the rip near the upper edge, then fastened it back into place. _Time to go after Belthasar._ It wasn't what I would have chosen—going up against the old man with no magic but a handful of talismans and old, unmonitorable set-spells—but waiting would just make things worse. Bad enough that that Thrasher had escaped to alert him, if I let him have time to actually prepare for our confrontation . . . 

"That was . . . interesting, sir," Vaie greeted me as I stepped back out into the hallway. 

"It was a mess, but it got the job done," I corrected her flatly. "Do we know where Belthasar is?" 

"Not on the two levels for which we have maps," came the reply. "We're searching the third level now." 

I shook my head. "If there are more than three levels, concentrate on the bottom one. That's where he'll be." Or, more accurately, it was where I hoped he _wouldn't_ be. 

The theft of the Frozen Flame and the fact that Belthasar was digging down into the seabed were combining in my mind to form a most unpleasant scenario, now that I was no longer distracted by thoughts of Flea and what to do with him. And so I was forcing myself to plan for the worst case. 

"Yes, sir. Just a moment. And . . . we think about eight. The main stairwell goes down a little below the final level, but there don't seem to be any openings off it." 

"Have it checked for concealed ones," I ordered, and then was forced to wait while the gargoyle passed on my commands. After that, I moved my . . . entourage . . . over to the stairwell. We took up position on the landing between the second and third levels, and once more resumed waiting. 

We'd been there for perhaps ten minutes when a Mage came floating up the shaft. "Sir, there is a concealed trapdoor at the bottom of the stairs." 

_It goes even further down?_ Something icy oozed into my stomach. I ignored it. 

"Get it open," I ordered, and flipped through the talismans Schala had given me until I found the one for flight. I activated it and vaulted over the railing that was intended to keep people from falling off the landing. As I dropped, I heard muted cursing and the flap of small gargoyle wings up above me . . . and then the sound of an explosion from below. 

By the time I landed, the smoke had mostly evaporated, leaving the open trapdoor sitting at the center of a circle of soot-marked stone. Not far away, a cursing Mage was pulling off damaged garments and rubbing tonic into flash-burns. 

"Booby trapped, I take it," I said in my driest tone of voice. 

"Yes, sir," said a gargoyle who had evidently been escorting the Mage. "No serious damage done, but I guess they know we're coming, if they didn't already." 

Belthasar almost certainly _had_ known, or at least I hoped he hadn't underestimated me that much. 

"Go have a look," Vaie ordered the gargoyle as she landed behind me. 

"Yes, sir," the construct repeated. He swung himself down through the open hatch. "Um, it's sort of a descending spiral tunnel. Sharp curve—I can't see very far—and a pretty steep slope, too." 

The oozing mass of cold in my stomach was spreading, and I reluctantly put a name to it. _Fear._ True fear, untempered by anger. 

There was only one thing that Belthasar could have been trying to dig down to, here beneath the seabed. And without my magic, I had no way of fighting what he might unearth. My only hope was that he hadn't gotten that far down yet, hadn't wakened Lavos . . . and that I would be able to kill him before he did. 

Vaie made a protesting sound as I strode over to stand on the edge of the trapdoor. I gave her a cold glare, and she subsided. 

"If I don't return within two hours, gather the troops and leave," I ordered her. "And tell the King that if he hopes to salvage anything from this, he is going to have to strike quickly and forcefully against what Belthasar has called up. If he fails, it will likely mean the end of the world." 

The gargoyle sergeant swallowed visibly, and nodded. 

I estimated the slope of the coiled tunnel below the trapdoor at thirty degrees—steep enough that climbing back up it, if I made it that far, was going to be murderous, although it would have been comfortable enough to float along. Unfortunately, the talisman Schala had given me simply wasn't that versatile. 

I shook my head and began to walk. 

There were, I discovered, occasional areas where the slope lessened for a moment, although it never entirely went away. Landings for rest, or slight corrections in the spiral's direction? The walls were mute in the eerie etheric lighting, telling me nothing. 

I think it may have taken me twenty minutes to reach the bottom, although I didn't bother checking the timepiece Lucca had given me. This took however long it took, and if the constructs evacuated before I was done . . . well, I would think of something. In any case, the spiral tunnel leveled off and widened itself at its lowest point, allowing access to a huge set of double doors. I snorted. Who did Belthasar think he was impressing, when chances were that no one but the two of us would ever see this place? 

I pushed the left-hand door open a handsbreadth and peered cautiously through the crack. What I saw caused me to need to bite back a curse. 

The room on the other side of the door was really just a narrow rim around an open pit, and in midair at the center of that pit, the Frozen Flame hovered. With my subtler senses unavailable, I was certain that I was missing some dimensions of what was going on, but I couldn't think of any way it could be benign. 

Belthasar was standing at the edge of the pit, with his back to me, staring up at the Flame. He didn't seem to have noticed my messing around with the door . . . which meant that this was an opportunity that might never come again. 

I drew out my scythe, then kicked the door further open and charged. 

Belthasar was more alert than I would have given him credit for, however. He managed to dodge the spike tipping the haft of my scythe by stepping off the platform on which he stood and floating in midair. I snarled and activated my flight talisman. 

Combat in three dimensions is a difficult proposition at the best of times, and it was even worse with the talisman keeping me in the air instead of my own will. The spells on the wafer of metal simply weren't responsive enough: I couldn't dump acceleration fast enough to change directions almost instantly, the way I was accustomed to doing, or use the magic to brace myself so that a twisting stroke of my scythe didn't spin me all the way around. I had to use my weapon like a thrusting spear, and despite the haft-spikes, it wasn't really suited for that. If Belthasar had shown the slightest interest in launching a counterattack, rather than just dodging, I might easily have been massacred. 

It took me only a minute or two to decide this wasn't going to work and come to a stop in midair at the same level as the Frozen Flame. On the other side of it, Belthasar hovered, smiling at me in a way that someone unaware of the kind of person he was might have interpreted as benign. 

"You mesh with its energies amazingly well, you know, even in your drained state." 

I scowled. "The Flame has tempted me before, or tried to. Quit stalling and surrender, old man." Bravado, and I knew it, even before Belthasar chuckled. 

"Flea predicted you would say something of the sort. She knows you well." 

" _He knew_ me well," I corrected dryly. 

"Ah, so you paid her a visit first. She suspected you would." 

"If you don't have anything useful to say, I'll just recover what you stole, and leave." I didn't want to risk touching the Frozen Flame directly, but I thought I could transport it safely if I wrapped it in my cape— 

"Is that all you want? It could get that collar off you, you know. Restore your magic. Lavos has that power." 

"Even assuming you're not lying outright, the price would be too high," I snapped. "I still don't understand how you can force yourself to be willfully blind to that parasite's true nature, despite the talent you've so often shown for focussed ignorance." 

"You should learn to restrain that temper of yours," the old man said. 

I gritted my teeth. _He's speaking to me as though I were an errant child because he's trying to get me to do something stupid and give him an opening,_ I told myself. _I'm not going to give him the satisfaction._

"When you learn to restrain your curiosity," I said, and Belthasar tilted his head as though conceding a point. 

He opened his mouth as though to say something further, but at that moment, the ground below us shook, and the dull rumble of it drowned out his words. The old man's eyes lit up. 

"It's waking!" he shouted. "Lavos . . . !" 

I assessed my options rapidly and darted in toward the Frozen Flame, hoping that removing it from whatever matrix of spells Belthasar had placed it in would make Lavos subside back into slumber. The old man seemed to guess my intent, however, and darted forward as well. Then I noticed a flowering of light below, and felt a tingling in my scalp, as though powerful energies that I couldn't otherwise sense were being directed toward me. Instinctively, I threw myself backward just as a column of radiance shot up, engulfing both Belthasar and the Flame. 

I landed on the rim of the pit and ran through the doors leading to the spiral ramp as a triumphal roar came from behind me, shaking loose chunks of stone down from the ceiling. I continued running all the way up the damned ramp, ignoring the ache in my thigh muscles and cursing Flea with every breath. If I had had my magic, I might have been able to salvage something from all this—attacked Lavos while it was still sluggish and confused from its long sleep—but as things stood I couldn't even call what had happened the worst-case scenario, because this was _worse_ than anything I had envisioned before it had happened. Oh, granted, it was possible that Lavos had merely killed Belthasar, but I suspected we might well have another Dream Devourer on our hands. 

My fault? I wasn't sure. Events might well have progressed along the same path here even without my presence. I doubted Flea had convinced Belthasar to do anything he wouldn't have eventually done by himself, and Dalton had always been an idiot . . . I couldn't even be certain that bringing Schala back to her own world had truly catalysed anything. 

Of course, I couldn't be certain that it _wasn't_ my fault either, and that thought preyed on me all the way up the ramp, along with gruesome imaginings of what would happen if the repeated ground tremors made the ceiling of the narrow spiral collapse. 

The shaking became worse as I neared the top, and I focussed all my energies on moving up and forward. Lavos was probably trying to pull itself up out of the ground, and I didn't want to still be here when it succeeded. 

When I scrambled up through the trapdoor, I found Vaie and one of the Mages waiting for me. The gargoyle was pale, and her shoulders slumped in relief as I appeared. 

"I sent the others on ahead when it looked to me like things weren't quite going as planned, sir," she said. 

"You did the right thing," I assured her. "Now, let's get moving." 

"Yes, sir." But she stayed where she was for a moment more and asked, "How bad is it?" 

"Bad," I replied grimly. "Very, very bad." 

We escaped Belthasar's little hole in the ground just in time to see it disintegrate in an uprush of lava that would have boiled the three of us alive had the Mage Vaie kept been a little less quick-thinking. Floating upward on the column of boiling water, I strained my eyes, waiting for Lavos to appear, if only as a shadow against the pool of molten rock on the ocean's floor, but I saw nothing. Had the creature sealed itself in again? Why? To give itself more time to absorb Belthasar? If that was the case, I would need to somehow assemble a strike force to go after it the moment I returned to Zeal, but if Lavos were just being its normal misanthropic self and biding its time until it was ready to harvest the planet's life, sending an unprepared group after it would be tantamount to murder. 

I was actually grateful, as we returned to the skyway, that someone else was providing the magic for flight. Feeling was starting to return to my feet, indicating Melchior's potion wearing off, and I was beginning to realize just how tired I was after a day and a half without rest or much in the way of food. It was . . . almost humourous, really. _Proof that life goes on, despite everything._

Our exhausted crew slipped into the palace via a side entrance . . . and almost collided with a little knot of Lashers. At their center were Marus, Schala, and Melchior, all looking worried in their various ways, although Schala's face relaxed almost instantly when she saw me. She had only been worried _about_ me, then, which was . . . flattering, in its way, but made me wonder if she truly understood what was at stake here. _Surely she can't be that naive._

"Sir?" Vaie said tentatively. 

"Go rest," I told her. "I'll take care of this." 

"Thank you, sir." She led the Mage on past me, back to the barracks. 

"You appear to have gained her respect," Marus said once the gargoyle was out of earshot. "What happened down there, Janus? The other constructs knew nothing that went beyond the point at which they were ordered to leave, but we did detect the eruption from the seabed." 

I grimaced. "I confronted Belthasar, and touched off something that might otherwise have waited a few days." 

Before I could say any more, Schala spoke up. "Father, can't you see he is exhausted? Let us at least continue this conversation somewhere that he can sit down." 

"We will move to the sitting room just down the hall, then," the king said. 

It was a room intended for servants, really, full of cast-off bits of furniture whose maintenance spells had begun to break down. There was a carpet, thick, but worn and curling up slightly at the edges. Inattention caused my foot to catch on that raised edge as I entered the room. Normally, it wouldn't have been a problem—I'd just have taken a slightly off-rhythm step and moved on—but as my body automatically shifted to compensate for the loss of balance, an agonizing pain shot up my leg, making me stagger and bite back a curse. 

Schala immediately took me by the arm and helped me limp the few steps to the nearest chair, while Marus frowned and Melchior rummaged through his pockets. After a moment, the old man pulled out a vial and offered it to me. 

He still hadn't succeeded in making the vile stuff cherry-flavoured, but I gulped it down regardless. I re-capped the vial and looked up to see Schala watching me anxiously. When I attempted to hand the small glass vessel back to Melchior, she shot out her hand to intercept it, and I couldn't see any way to stop her from taking it without making a scene. 

She uncapped the vial and sniffed at it, wrinkling her nose, then raked Melchior and I with an accusing glance. "This is that horrible so-called medicine used to blunt the pain from diseases not curable by magic. What is going on here? Why does Janus need this? There are much milder formulations that could be used to deal with a mere drain headache—even I know that." 

"It isn't actually the same formula," Melchior said. "The normal version of that medicine would have no effect at all on Prince Janus' physiology." 

"Melchior, please answer my question," Schala said firmly. 

"I'm using it because at the moment I have a choice between being in pain and being effectively helpless, and the pain is . . . distracting," I growled. 

"Janus . . . Why didn't you _tell_ me?" 

I shrugged. "I didn't want to make you worry over nothing." 

"You are the most exasperating— Janus, I am not made of glass. Please don't worry about my being damaged by a little information." Marus then got a glare of his own. "That goes for you as well, Father. You knew, didn't you?" 

I don't know what Marus' reply was, because I wasn't listening. Instead, I was thinking about lies. And truth. And the relationship between trust and information. 

My sister had said that my devotion to her well-being frightened her. Was that also true of this Schala? And . . . was what I was doing really for her sake, or my own? _I don't want to be the cause of your tears . . ._ but what was I to do in a situation where any choice could end in hurting her? 

_There are no right answers. I should know that by now._

"Schala." 

"Yes?" Her expression, as she looked at me, was one of exasperated affection, and my nerve almost failed me. Almost. 

"I didn't want to tell you this, but if I don't get this damnable collar off—something which is looking less and less likely—it will eventually kill me." There, it was out in the open now. 

Schala went white, mouth opening in a soundless O which she immediately covered with her hand. Then she shook herself, and colour flooded back into her face. 

"We will find a way," she said firmly. "I will _not_ give you up. Not now. Not after . . . everything." 

Marus, I noted, was gazing with surprised approval at us both. I forced myself to ignore the flicker of warmth this created inside me, although, truth be told, my emotional controls seemed to be getting weaker and weaker. I told myself that it was just because of exhaustion and pain and injury piling upon injury, but I had a suspicion that it was permanent. 

"I'm not _planning_ to die," was all I said. "Now, on to more important matters." 

The others silently found seats as I began to give a succinct report on what had happened inside Belthasar's lair. Marus' face became very still when I got to my confrontation with Flea, and explained what he had told me. Schala, on the other hand, permitted herself to wince quite openly. 

The king did allow himself to frown when I reached the bit about Belthasar, Lavos, and the Flame, however, and Melchior imitated him as I grimly gave an outline of exactly what I thought we were going to end up facing. 

"We have some bad news of our own," the Guru said. "Belthasar must have been drawing on the Sun Stone for . . . whatever he was trying to do with the Flame. It's even more depleted now—we have perhaps a week before the islands fall from the sky, and no way of preventing it from happening." 

One of the ideas that had been nibbling at the back of my mind was there again. _We can't keep the floating islands from coming down . . . Wait. We can't keep them from_ coming down _, but that isn't the same as being unable to keep them from_ falling _._ The idea had hooked itself, and I knew what we needed to do. It was enough to make me bark a laugh. 

"What a classic case of a blind spot," I said aloud. "You were blinkered by your assumptions, and I by my memories of events that took place in my own world. Tell me, what do you _normally_ do if you're supporting something heavy but fragile, and can no longer hold it up, but also don't want it damaged by dropping?" 

Schala's eyes widened. "Of _course_. You set it down." 

"Exactly. The ground underneath us originally came from the surface. All we have to do is set it back in its place. There will still be a bit of disruption of course, but overall, Zeal's civilization will continue intact. Lifting the islands into the sky in the first place was a foolish extravagance on our ancestors' part," I added, and no one seemed inclined to argue with me. 

Marus shook his head. "So very simple," he murmured. "However, many people will not approve." 

"Oh, I can imagine the rhetoric," I admitted. "'Send us down to the surface to live like _animals_? How _dare_ you?!' I'm afraid that quelling that is going to be your job, and Schala's. My interference would only make things worse. If it helps, suggest that it's only temporary and the islands will be raised again once a suitable power source is found." 

"That is one of the obvious tacks to take, yes." Marus hesitated fractionally before going on. "You are accustomed to being surrounded by fools, aren't you?" 

I shrugged. "I'm not sure that 'fools' is the word, but most of the people I've run into who didn't need me to do their thinking for them would have been uncomfortable with such duplicity." 

"Hmm." The king sat back in his chair. His expression was neutral, giving me no insight into what he was thinking. "Melchior, are there any technical impediments you can think of to setting the islands back down?" 

"One obvious one," the old man said. "And that's that they won't float on water without the aid of spells. We'll need to identify their original locations so that we can set them back on their bases, or find somewhere that will provide an equal level of support. It won't really be a problem so long as we don't run out of time." 

There was a moment of silence while we all contemplated this grim possibility. 

"At least we will have _tried_ ," Schala said at last. 

Marus nodded. "Get started immediately," he told Melchior. "If running out of time endangers us, then we must do our utmost to keep it from happening." 

"Yes, your Majesty." Melchior rose from his chair and began fishing through his pocket for his communications talisman as he headed for the door. 

Marus pushed himself to his feet as well. "I need to start explaining this to people." He paused in the doorway on the way out to give Schala and I a thoughtful look. 

"I feel so stupid now," Schala said as the door closed behind her father. "It was so _obvious_ when you explained it, so why didn't I see it? Why didn't any of us see it?" 

"It took me a while, too," I pointed out. "There is such a thing as being too close to the problem to see the solution." I forced myself to my feet again, ignoring a phantom twinge of pain from my leg and the increasingly leaden feeling of my limbs. "In the meanwhile, I need to figure out what to do about Lavos. It _may_ remain quiescent for a time, but sooner or later it's going to erupt again, and we need to be ready when it does." 

"You aren't in any condition to be planning anything," Schala said. "You should be in bed. _Again._ Have you always needed someone to force you to rest properly? And eat?" 

I scowled. "It's Flea's damnable collar. I _used_ to be able to stay awake for several days at a stretch when it was necessary. Running a war doesn't really allow you to get much sleep." _And besides, none of my minions in the old days would have dared order me around._

"A _war_? Is that . . . what you think this is?" 

"Not yet," I said grimly. "But when Lavos rises . . ." 

" . . . you will need to be well-rested," Schala said, shaking her head . . . but she was smiling as well. 

That drew a bark of laughter from me. "Very well: I surrender. I'll eat something and go to bed for a few hours. I doubt I can afford more than that." 

"I will accept that for the time being." 

In the hallway, Schala buttonholed a serving construct and told it to arrange for a light meal to be brought to my room. Then we limped slowly across the palace to the royal quarters, our pace slowed by the fact that I absolutely refused to be seen leaning on either my companion or the walls. Anyone who dared look at us, I pinned with a cold glare. I was, I realized, very tired and going into a defensive mode that I hadn't used in some time . . . which meant that Schala was right to send me off to bed, damn it all. 

By the time we reached my room, the food had already arrived, and I forced myself to eat it. I still had very little appetite, something that was beginning to worry me a bit: it made it too easy to forget to fuel my body, which might mean collapsing at a bad moment . . . _As though there weren't enough other reasons for that to happen,_ I thought. Schala, in the meanwhile, sat beside me and . . . hovered. 

"You should get some rest too," I said when everything was gone except the tea. 

"Perhaps, but . . ." 

I waited. 

"I have never been so afraid," she whispered, shoulders slowly slumping. "Not even when I flung myself into the void that Belthasar had created. You wouldn't have sensed it, but when that Lavos creature erupted from the seabed, the energies of the entire world . . . It felt like the whole planet was screaming in pain. How do you fight something like that?" 

I wrapped my arms around her and pulled her gently against me. She didn't resist. 

"It isn't impossible," I murmured in her ear. "We destroyed my world's Lavos—me, and several others, working together. And here we can send an army of mages against the outer shell, which was something my world couldn't do. Then, once we've blown its jaws off, we send a small strike force of strong fighters into the shell to battle the inner Lavos." 

"There are no strong fighters among the Enlightened," Schala whispered. 

"Then we recruit from among the Earthbound and the constructs," I replied. "Having the Enlightened owe their continued survival to those they despise might do them some good." 

"I think that there are many people here who would simply be angered." 

With anger leading to backlash and another war between the Enlightened and the Earthbound, like the one that had produced some of the horrific weapons in the North Palace . . . I grimaced. _Such strife over such a tiny difference._ One gene . . . my world's Melchior had told me that once. One gene was all that separated Enlightened and Earthbound, magic-gifted and magicless. There had even been a few cases where gene damage had caused the child of two Enlightened to be incapable of magical operancy, although that was normally put right before the child was even born . . . 

I think my eyes must have widened slightly. There it was. The key. Humanity _could_ be reunited, if we all survived this. All it would take was a few willing water-elements and a lot of patience. And the cooperation of the Earthbound, but I couldn't see why they wouldn't offer it. Having their children all be born with magic . . . I would have expected them to be willing to do _anything_ to achieve that, but I also knew that human beings could be bizarrely perverse. 

_In any case,_ I told myself, _it doesn't matter right now. If we don't survive Lavos, there will be no long-term reunion of the human race to worry about._

"Janus? What are you thinking about?" 

"Something for the future," I said. "A way to heal humanity. I'll need to talk to Melchior to make certain that it's feasible, though, and I don't dare distract him right now." 

"Mmh. Do you . . ." 

"Do I what?" I prompted gently when she seemed unwilling or unable to finish the sentence. 

"I was going to ask if you regretted not recharging the Sun Stone while you were able to do so, but you are not a person who regrets." 

"No, I tend to rage and foam at the mouth instead, if I make a serious mistake," I said, and got a muffled giggle. _Only you would consider my anger a matter for laughter,_ I thought affectionately. "However, I still don't think that was one. Returning the floating islands to the surface will benefit the entire human race, in the long term." 

"What about . . . little things? The ones that aren't worth raging and foaming for?" 

She was clearly going somewhere with this, but I couldn't figure out what her intended destination was. "If it isn't important enough to evoke anger, it isn't important enough for me to hold onto at all, and I dismiss it from my mind." 

"And if you . . . think it is something you might regret, in the future, if you don't do it?" 

"Is there some opportunity before you that you're afraid of missing?" I asked, amused. "Then perhaps you should move forward and _do_ whatever it is that you're contemplating. That should at least prevent it from slipping through your fingers." 

"I . . . don't know." But even as she spoke, one of her hands rose to weave through my hair just behind my ear and push gently at me. Amused, I accepted her guidance and turned my head so that I was facing her more fully. 

Our faces were mere inches apart. I could feel the warmth of her breath against my skin. And then she leaned in closer yet, and the last trace of amusement fled my mind, in favour of something more primal. 

It wasn't a very good kiss—Schala was clearly inexperienced, and I was afraid of frightening her if I took too much of the initiative and showed her some of what Flea and his bad habits had taught me, over the years—but it sent sweet fire through my veins nonetheless. 

"Schala . . ." I didn't consciously decide to speak her name as we parted. It just slid from my lips, as natural as breath. She had both hands tangled in my hair now, and mine were resting against the small of her back. 

"I still don't know," she whispered. "I . . . Sometimes I'm certain that I'm in love with you, and sometimes you just terrify me." 

"I'm sorry. Frightening you is the last thing I ever intend. I'll try to—" I stopped abruptly as she placed a finger across my lips. 

"And that is exactly what frightens me," she said. "The way you tie yourself into knots for me— _because of_ me. You worry me less when you permit yourself to _be_ yourself, cynicism and prickly pride and all." 

"My sister once told me something very similar," I admitted. "I suppose I've never quite gotten over the humiliation of not being able to save her from Lavos—of failing at that _twice_ , and then having to stand back and let someone _else_ rescue her . . ." My hands were balling into fists, and I forced myself to relax again. That whole series of incidents was over and done with, and I would do my utmost to see that it was _not_ repeated here. 

Schala gave me a lopsided smile. "I think . . . it is perhaps time that we both got some rest." 

I snorted. "On the grounds that we'll both be more rational in the morning? . . . Perhaps." 

She pulled her right hand away from me immediately when I let her go, but the left lingered, running through my hair until she reached the end of the strands and they fell away. Even when she reached the doorway, she paused for a glance back over her shoulder before stepping outside. 

It was only when I was certain that she was truly gone that I laid myself on the bed. Without magic, I couldn't turn the lights off, so I ended up staring at a clearly visible ceiling as I thought. 

It was odd, but I had probably spent more time with the Schala of this universe than I had with my sister since I'd become an adult, even if I added our encounters while I'd been playing the Prophet to those that had taken place after she had been rescued from the Time Devourer. That meant that my memories of her were primarily a child's. Did it also mean that my emotional attachment to her—to both of them—was based on a child's unexamined feelings? 

_Possible._ Perhaps even likely. _How . . . embarrassing._

_Let us say, just for the sake of argument, that I do manage to get this collar off, and manage to make a hero of myself in the fight against this Lavos, removing most of the impediments to marrying a princess. Let us say further— unlikely though it seems at the moment—that Melchior can make it possible for me to father children. If we were to wed . . . how would it work? What would we build between us? How would our understanding of each other change, and would we be able to live with it?_

They were unanswerable questions, of course, but they nonetheless kept me from getting to sleep for quite some time. 

* * *

It took Melchior and his minions three days to find the locations on the surface from which the Floating Islands had initially been torn. Unable to help in that effort, I threw myself into dissecting the ancient records of the levitation spell that kept them in the air, a task which required only an understanding of magical notation, as opposed to requiring magic. That spell was an ugly thing, shadow-based but clearly written by someone without much understanding of my element, since it was grossly inefficient, and I was rather surprised that it had only _now_ started to become a critical drain on the Sun Stone. Under the circumstances, however, its sloppy construction became a blessing of sorts, making it easy to create and write out a layer-by-layer deconstruction procedure. 

I saw little of Schala during this time, for she and her father had another task: breaking the news to the citizenry without precipitating a revolution. That was another thing that I couldn't help with. I have never had much of a talent for gently making people swallow unpalatable truths without choking—far easier to intimidate them with my powers, or grease the information's path down their throats with an outright lie, but even the most carefully chosen untruth can backfire and leave a mess to clean up afterwards. With the Mystics, and again when I had been regent of Guardia, I hadn't worried about that too much, because I hadn't intended to stay with those people and so didn't much care what kind of backlash was aimed in my direction after my immediate task was done. Here, things were . . . different. 

By the end of the fourth day, everything was ready, and on the morning of the fifth day, all the strongest mages in Zeal gathered on the lawns in front of the palace, along with a few privileged observers such as myself. A cordon of constructs kept everyone else away—I had ordered that, on the grounds that I didn't quite trust the population of the floating islands. It would only take one fool willing to sacrifice himself to keep his homeland in the air to disrupt everything, and we couldn't afford that. Granted, many people were busy with their own tasks, creating shelters to preserve the plants and animals that wouldn't thrive on the cold, cloudy surface against the day when the skies cleared again, but . . . 

A light touch on my arm broke me out of that train of thought. Seeing that she had gained my attention, Schala smiled at me and laced her fingers through mine. We stood holding hands as the other mages arranged themselves in a circle, directed by lines that had been painted on the grass the day before. When everyone was in place except her, Melchior cleared his throat. 

"Princess, if you would . . . ?" 

Schala smiled at him, but turned to face me. "Will you wish us luck?" 

My hand rose, almost involuntarily, to touch her face. "If we need luck in order to accomplish this, something's already wrong," I said, and was rewarded by her smile widening and becoming more genuine. "I don't believe in it, anyway. The future is something that we build, not something that happens by chance. Now, go, before Melchior has a fit and incapacitates himself." 

And that got me an actual giggle before she turned away. However, her face became serious as she took her place in the circle. She had a major role in this complex spellcasting, for it was she who would lead the group of mages who would ensure that the islands glided down gently, while Marus led another portion of the circle in dismantling the existing spell, and Melchior worked on guiding each giant lump of rock back onto its foundations. 

And I, bereft of my powers, couldn't do _anything_ . . . except watch. 

As the chanting began, I flipped through the ring of talismans Schala had given me half an eternity ago, and ran my thumb quickly over the surface of one intended to provide magical vision. It was a poor substitute for the full array of my subtler senses, but with it I would at least be able to perceive _some_ of what was going on. 

Under my altered vision, light blossomed in the center of the circle, threads of it stretching out from each individual mage to weave together into a thick column that plunged down into the ground. Down there, out of my sight, it should be splitting up, sending fingers out to the smaller islands that floated around the edges of the main one. Melchior had told me that each of those would have to be pushed away at the last moment in order to settle properly onto its base, because the islands had originally been much further apart than they were now, although their relative positions had been retained. I'd decided to take his word for it. 

I didn't see the islands begin to descend so much as feel it, however. First there was a grating little vibration, then the sensation that my feet weren't resting quite as firmly on the ground as they ought to be. _Like being in an elevator,_ I thought, although I knew that no one else here would have understood the analogy—quick access to the tops of our tallest towers was provided by lesser versions of the Skyways, like those on the path between Kajar and the palace. A device that would have allowed the Earthbound to easily ascend to those heights . . . would not have been favoured in Zeal. 

The sudden plunge into the cloud cover that encircled most of the world made me mutter an involuntary curse and bring my arm up in front of my face to guard myself against anything that might materialize out of the fog. Only the sound of chanting told me that the massive spell being cast ten feet away hadn't fallen apart—that, and the sensation of the ground pressing against the soles of my boots. 

It felt like an hour before we dropped through into clear, if gloomy, air again, but I was certain that the time actually involved was far less—I was only reacting to the sense of vulnerability that derived from being all but blind. The chanting had thinned out while we had still been surrounded by grey, and once I could see as far as the circle again, I could understand why: it was the group led by Marus that had fallen silent, because their work was done, the old spell dismantled. 

I obviously couldn't see through the ground from my position in the meadow, but I knew what was below us when a slight jar indicated that the lowest point of the main island had struck water: its old base took the form of an oval reef, like an underwater crater, even the edges only rising to a few inches above the surface at low tide. In the center, the area from which the island had been torn like an infected tooth was full of water. Marus began leading his portion of the circle in a different chant, one designed to prevent backwash from the agitated sea from overtaking inhabited land, as the islands settled lower. 

A grating vibration suggested that we were scraping off centuries' worth of encrusted sea life as long-separated rocky surfaces settled against each other. Then there was no more movement, and the texture of the chanting changed as Schala and Melchior's groups turned their attention to the lesser islands, which were still floating a fraction above the waves. Each of them in turn floated out toward the horizon for a time, then settled downward and out of sight. When all three of them were gone, first Melchior, then Schala, brought their parts of the spell to an end. Marus kept on a while longer, some ten minutes or so, until we could be reasonably certain that the worst of the waves created by the displaced water would have quieted as the sea found its new level. When his portion of the circle fell silent as well, the only sound was that of the surf, striking the distant base of the cliff below the palace. 

A number of people's shoulders sagged with relief— one elderly man, who had been standing with his back to me, actually sat down abruptly on the painted grass, although whether it was the release of tension or just exhaustion that had gotten to him, I couldn't have said. In any case, the circle of mages began to break up, and I signaled the cordon of constructs that had been encircling the area to let them through. 

A few remained in the area as flakes of snow began to drift down from the clouds, grouping themselves into clumps to talk, or simply staring off at a horizon that now contained something other than fuzzy pale grey. I drifted over to join Marus and Schala, who were standing just out of earshot of the rest of the group, conversing quietly. 

" . . . Lavos may be several miles straight down, but it is also less than a hundred feet in that direction," Marus was saying as I approached. "Sooner or later, we will have to deal with it." 

"Not 'sooner or later'," I corrected harshly. "As soon as possible. I don't trust Belthasar." 

"Nor do I," the king responded without even turning to look at me. "However, waiting for a short period may throw him off-guard. In any case, who would you have me send? The most powerful mages in the kingdom were all part of this working, and they are all exhausted. Myself included. We need a day or two to prepare." 

I muttered a curse, knowing that he was right. 

"We will also need to mobilize the security forces," Marus continued as though I hadn't spoken. "And we will need to find out exactly where our target is, and assemble what we will need to reach it. We do not often attempt to penetrate the seabed—" 

Suddenly, the ground under our feet began to shake, nearly throwing me to my knees. Marus staggered as well, stumbling across the ground to ram me with his shoulder, forcing me to grab onto him to keep from falling. Schala tottered over to us in turn, grabbing my shoulders, and we leaned against each other as the shaking continued. 

"I hope this doesn't mean that the island's original support structure is so eroded that we are going to end up in the water despite all our efforts," Marus said, practically in my ear. 

Instead of answering with words, I pointed out to sea. 

When the rocky spire reached its full height, it might conceivably be possible to climb directly from the edge of the palace's back garden onto its steep-pitched side. Right now, it was still growing, and I could hear the ocean snarling against its base as the space it was permitted to occupy changed with every breaking wave. 

We watched in silence as the spire drew itself up to its full height, dwarfing the palace and its towers. Only when it had risen so high that the tip of it vanished into the clouds did the ground quiet. 

"'Look upon my works, ye mighty, and despair,'" Marus murmured as he released his grip on my elbows and took a half-step back. It sounded like a quote. "So what do you think we have here? Is this Lavos' idea of a threat?" 

"I think it's a threat, a challenge, and an attempt to intimidate us all at once," I said. "And more likely Belthasar's idea than Lavos'." The homicidal giant space-going porcupine- armadillo had never really struck me as all that bright, even though it should have been able to harvest the best genes of humanity. "He's saying a number of things, including, 'Look! I can do what you are no longer able to!' That's why he made it so ridiculously high. And I suspect that there's a cave opening somewhere up there." I smiled thinly. "Well, at least we don't have to worry anymore about Lavos not being perceived as a threat by the average Enlightened. If this doesn't make them nervous, then they're stupider than zombies." 

The king gave me a narrow-eyed look. "And what would you know about zombies?" 

"Am I to infer from that that you're just as squeamish about dead bodies as the Earthbound?" I asked with a snort. "Necromancy may be ugly, but it does have its uses." 

"Janus, stop trying to shock us," Schala said, not relaxing her grip on my shoulders. "And father, stop trying to find fault with him. You trusted him enough to put him in charge of the security forces." 

"That was an experiment," I said. "He wanted to see whether, given a rope, I would use it to hang myself . . . or someone else." 

Marus' face became a study in expressionlessness. "You are altogether too observant for your own good." 

I shrugged. "I understand how political decisionmaking works. You would like to trust me, but you don't feel you can. Not quite, not yet. And so you set tests." 

"Then, if you understand that, here is another: If there is a cave in that spire, and it allows direct access to this Lavos, who will you send into it?" 

"At least three mages and three physical fighters, in addition to myself," I said promptly, finding his use of _will_ rather than _would_ . . . not precisely heartening, but perhaps reassuring. "Ideally, one of the fighters should be recruited from among the Earthbound, if they're agreeable, but if they aren't, I'll take constructs." I hesitated for a moment before adding, "In my own world, we did it with three people in total, but I would prefer a little redundancy." 

Marus frowned. "I understand why you want to take the Earthbound and the constructs, but I am not certain it is wise. Making our people beholden to them may cause resentment rather than the increased acceptance I suspect you are hoping for." 

I smiled thinly. "The fighters are a necessity, and I wouldn't expect to find any among the Enlightened. Lavos possesses some problematic magic-absorption and healing abilities, so we will have to attack it physically to open a path for the mages. And on top of that, if that cave does exist and go all the way down, it's going to be full of monsters, some of which will no doubt be resistant to magic. I can't, on my own, guarantee that I can protect more than one person from all of that." 

"Then that one person will be me, because I will be going," Schala said firmly. 

"Schala—" I began, but was interrupted. 

"And I will be going as well," Marus said. 

"Are you both mad?" I snapped, patience at an end. "What if we don't come back? What happens to the succession?" 

"I will leave that in Melchior's hands," the king said, turning to look out to sea. "With you crippled, I am the strongest mage in Zeal, and we cannot send less than our strongest and best against the greatest threat that Zeal has ever faced. I know that creature, that Lavos, in some ways even better than you do, and the thought of subjecting my people to the attack of something that combines its strength and malice with Belthasar's intelligence is terrifying. Anything I can do to minimize the risk, I must attempt . . . even if that means risking my life, and my daughter's." 

"Thank you for not trying to stop me," Schala whispered. 

"I never could refuse you anything that you truly wanted," Marus replied with a crooked smile. "Not your choice of consort, and not this. You have become a great deal stronger than I ever expected that you could, and I am proud of you, Schala." 

"I have had the advantage, recently, of an excellent example of what it means to be strong," Schala said, her hand coming lightly to rest on my arm. 

Marus' eyebrows rose, and he sighed. "I will select another mage to add to our party. Janus, I leave the matter of deciding which fighters to bring up to you. You will also arrange to scout out that spire and determine whether or not there truly is a cave . . . although if we must, we will burrow down through the seabed. We will depart tomorrow regardless." 

Tomorrow didn't leave me with a lot of time to select fighters from among the constructs, much less visit the Earthbound, but I signaled a nearby Lasher instead of arguing. Discussion would merely waste time. 

We had a Lavos to kill. 

* * *

"I do not claim to like it," the old headman of Algetty said, folding his arms across his chest, "but I will not stop you from speaking to the young folk." The primitive lamp lighting the little room stank of oil that was beginning to go rancid, and I restrained myself, yet again, from wrinkling my nose. 

Schala bowed. "Thank you—that is all we ask." 

The elderly Earthbound shrugged. "If this is truly a threat to all of us, I can do no less. You may wish to speak to my grandson—he will know who the best fighters are, and who is likely to be willing to go with you. He has guard duty at the main entrance to the caves today." 

I frowned. Yes, we had passed two Earthbound at the normally-unguarded front door of Algetty, but I hadn't paid any attention to them beyond a quick check to see if they were likely to attack us. When they'd made no effort to challenge us, I'd allowed myself to ignore them. 

"I had wondered why there were people up there," Schala was saying. 

The headman grimaced. "We're guarding as many of the entrances as we can now, and closing off some of the smaller and less useful ones down in the caverns. I've been wanting to for years, but it took having that monster loose inside our home to make everyone else see things my way. It's almost enough to make me want to _thank_ the creature." 

I snorted, biting back a remark to the effect that I could pass that sentiment onto its creator, if he wished. I was hoping that we would be able to kill Belthasar without giving him any time for conversation. 

As we left the room the two Lashers I had brought along on this trip to Algetty fell in to flank us. It had been galling to admit that we needed guards, but I was afraid that, shorn of my magic, I might not be able to protect Schala. 

How long had it been since I had last climbed a ladder? I wondered as we made our way back up to the topmost level of the cave. Certainly I hadn't done so since I was a child. And now I was once more reduced to a child's weakness and dependence on others . . . _Stop that,_ I told myself. _You know very well that it's possible to live a full life as an independent adult without possessing even so much as a sliver of magic. Schala—the other Schala—even gave hers up voluntarily._

It was no doubt the "voluntarily" bit that was the sticking point. Those who had never had magic didn't miss it, and anyone who willingly gave it up probably wouldn't resent it, but I'd had mine torn from me, and it was as crippling as losing a limb. 

"You are Ruan, the headman's grandson, are you not?" 

I stepped off the top of the ladder to find Schala talking to one of the young Earthbound at the cave mouth. He was, in his own way, an impressive specimen: leanly muscular and almost as tall as I was, indicating that he had probably gotten the best of the available food as a child. He wore the fur-lined leather leggings, soft boots, and hooded tunic typical of hunters among his people. He was also the first native of Algetty I had ever met who wore his hair long, in a thick, dark brown braid that hung all the way to his waist. His beard was neatly trimmed short—indeed, he seemed to have taken a great deal of care with his appearance, enough so to make me wonder if he was courting some young woman in the caverns below. 

"Yes, Princess Schala." Ruan looked at me with open interest, not dropping his gaze the way most Earthbound—and some of the Enlightened—did. Young, intelligent, and not yet downtrodden like his fellows . . . If he could fight as well, I wanted him along on our expedition. The haft of his spear was darkly polished, suggesting frequent handling, but I couldn't tell how much of that had been in combat. 

"Your grandfather suggested that you might know which of your people were the most skilled fighters," Schala said. 

"I do," came the instant reply, "but if I may ask, princess, why would that be of interest to you?" 

"Because we need your help," Schala said promptly, and went on to sketch the situation with Lavos. As she spoke, Ruan began to frown. At one point, he gave me a raking glance worthy of . . . me. 

"I have only two questions," Ruan said when she was done. "First of all, how many of us do you need? And secondly, when do we leave?" 

"No more than two," I said evenly. "And most likely tomorrow. We're going to want you up at the palace almost immediately, though—unless we find some sort of anti-magic protection for you, this trip is going to be a death sentence. The time between now and then will be taken up with testing." 

The young Earthbound snorted. "I suppose it was too much to expect that you would just take my word for who the best fighters are." His jaw was beginning to set stubbornly. 

I gave him a cold look. "The king will be joining us on this little expedition. I am responsible for his safety, as well as Princess Schala's, and I refuse to leave anything to chance. If you can't accept that, or can't bear to take my orders, find me someone who will." 

His smile was more of a baring of teeth. Ruan seemed to have taken something of a dislike to me, a much deeper one than my words alone should have been able to create. It couldn't be a sensitivity to the aura I no longer had, but . . . what? 

Then he looked at Schala, and that one look told me everything I needed to know. 

Ruan hadn't grown his hair out, in defiance of Earthbound custom, because of some girl down in the caverns, but to make himself look more like one of the Enlightened. Because he was in love with a woman from the Floating Islands, the only such he had ever met. 

Schala. 

And now he was staring at her declared consort, and trying to understand why she had chosen me over him. A handsome young Enlightened of his own age he could have understood, but not a battered freak. 

I gave him a fang-baring smile of my own. "You don't have to like me," I told him. "But you are going to have to trust that I am not going to endanger anyone on this expedition needlessly." I let my smile fade. "We will be going up against an extremely powerful creature which is partially immune to magic. We need the best fighters we can get, and I need to determine whether your people are up to the same standard as our constructs, who are having an elimination tournament right now to determine which of the volunteers gets to go. I will take— _must_ take—only the best." 

Ruan was still meeting my eyes, unafraid. "All right, then. I understand, although I don't claim to like it. We'll go down to the practice room. I'll send someone up to cover my post," he added to the other Earthbound posted at the entrance, and the older man nodded. 

We descended the ladders again—I was starting to think that I missed the ability to fly just by willing it so more than any other aspect of my magic—to the main level of Algetty, and Ruan sent a couple of children off to fetch people. 

The "practice room" turned out to be a natural cavern with a high ceiling and a sandy floor, probably chosen for size and for the fact that the footing resembled what the hunters would find in the snow outside. It would suffice. 

I drew out my scythe, the spells engraved into the metal crescent I wore responding to my will despite my present lack of magic. Ruan's eyebrows rose as I spun the weapon in my hands, then grounded the haft beside my foot. 

"You're going to want to stay well back," I warned Schala, who nodded and went to stand near the entrance to the room, behind a three-foot-high wall of loosely piled rocks that seemed to define an observation area. When I was certain she was safe, I turned to Ruan. "Well? What are you waiting for?" 

Unexpectedly, he grinned. "For the shock of seeing an Enlightened holding a weapon to wear off. I didn't think you Fl—you people ever did anything so physical." 

"Most of us don't," I admitted flatly. "I've spent most of my life outside of Zeal and its society." 

"Hmmm. Well, I guess there's no point in asking if you're ready, so . . ." He jabbed at me with his spear. I knocked the attack aside with my scythe even though I could tell that it wasn't supposed to land, and the battle was on. 

It was fortunate that I wasn't really trying to win, although I might have done so if I'd attacked all-out immediately, before Ruan had grasped the limitations of my unusual weapon. That wasn't the point of what we were doing here, though, so we continued to clash and dodge and try to perforate each other long after that point was past. 

After perhaps ten minutes, we broke off and backed away as though by mutual consent. Both of us were breathing hard. Ruan, lacking personal grooming spells to clean the sweat from his skin, took his left hand from his spear and swiped the back of it across his forehead. 

"You're good," I admitted. Indeed, in terms of raw skill, he was better than I was, able to compensate for my much better weapon and extra inches of reach. 

Unexpectedly, the young Earthbound grinned. "So are you. Does this mean I get to come?" 

"Yes." I said it as flatly as I could, then turned to look at the several Earthbound that had joined Schala in the spectators' area while I'd been occupied with Ruan. "Which of you is next?" 

I fought eight different people over the course of that day, and by the time I was done, I was quite exhausted, although I refused to show it. Two of the Earthbound would be returning to the palace with us: Ruan and a woman named Kaya, who was middle-aged for an Earthbound but still strong and quick on her feet. 

Two Earthbound, a construct, a trio of mages with much power but little experience of violence, and my crippled self . . . I honestly didn't know whether it would be enough to fight Lavos. Crono and the others, for all that I'd called them weak more than once, had been battle-hardened warriors. Could seven variously handicapped people do now what the three of us had accomplished then? 

But the truth was that even if the chances of success were low, we had to try. If we didn't, it was almost certain that the combination of Belthasar and Lavos would destroy the world. 

Such thoughts kept me occupied as we trudged through the snow. When we reached the shore of the ocean, Schala used the diagram we'd drawn there on the way over to teleport us across the straits to the former floating island where the palace stood. 

This placed us at the edge of the grounds, and out of the corner of my eye, I saw Schala blinking back tears. I had to admit that things had really gone downhill here over the past few days: what had once been a gracefully landscaped area of lush green grass and flowering shrubs was now just a mass of sere, winter-killed vegetation. 

I touched Schala's arm lightly. "It _will_ be alright," I told her gently. "One way or the other. There is nothing here that cannot be healed if we all survive." 

"I hope you are right," she said softly. "I truly do." 

Ruan was watching us and frowning. I pretended to ignore him, but I wasn't above taking Schala's hand in my own, visually indicating my claim to her. I did not need to have this expedition disrupted by his jealousy, so best make it clear from the beginning just how things were going to work. 

We slipped into the palace via a side door and were almost immediately stopped by a servant. 

"Your Highness, my lord . . . his Majesty wishes to speak to you. He is waiting in his study." He studiously ignored the two Earthbound. 

"Very well," I said, and gestured a dismissal. "This will probably be our briefing," I added to Ruan and Kaya. Ruan, at least, nodded. 

Marus wasn't waiting for us alone. Melchior stood in front of the desk, along with a stranger with dark blue hair, whom I presumed was our third mage. Vaie was holding up the wall beside the door. And the Sun Stone lay in solitary splendour in the middle of the desktop, its flickering light casting strange shadows. 

"Introductions would be in order, I believe," Marus prompted, "especially for the benefit of our comrades from Algetty. I am Marus, king of Zeal." 

"Talletar," the blue-haired stranger said ungraciously. "I am a fire-elemental mage, currently the most powerful such in Zeal." The lines across his forehead and bracketing the corners of his mouth suggested that he rarely smiled. 

I nodded. It wasn't a bad choice—we needed a mage who wasn't a lightning-element, just in case—but it would have been nice if his attitude had been a little better. His body language suggested he was barely restraining himself from turning up his nose and sniffing. 

"Everyone knows Schala and myself, I think," I said, and nodded to the Earthbound. 

"Ruan, hunter of Algetty. And this is Kaya," the young Earthbound added, gesturing to the woman beside him. Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed that Marus' eyebrows had risen. No doubt he knew that authority in Algetty normally went with age, and was wondering why it was the younger Earthbound who had spoken. 

"Melchior, Guru of Reason. I will not be going with you," the old man added. "I merely had something to give to Pr— _Lord_ Janus." He held out three vials, and I accepted them absently, tucking two into pockets in my cape. I didn't drink the other immediately, though, because I was too busy checking others' reactions to Melchior's near-slip-of-the-tongue. Ruan and Kaya were oblivious, as far as I could tell, but they were unlikely to know anything of Zealish protocol. Talletar's eyes had narrowed, so he had noticed, but might not know what to make of it. Vaie's wings had fluffed out slightly, indicating startlement, but I doubt anyone else in the room could tell. 

When I did open the vial and drink, I discovered that Melchior's attempt at cherry flavour was, if anything, even more repulsive than the original something-died-in-my-mouth version. Somehow I forced myself not to grimace, and handed the vial calmly back to the old man. 

"And that is Sergeant Vaie," I added, indicating the gargoyle with my chin. "I have no idea whether she will be joining our expedition, or is simply here to report." 

"Both, as it happens, my lord," came the prompt reply. 

"I take it that those sent to scout the spire have returned," I said, and glanced at Marus, who nodded. 

"Yes, my lord. There is a cave in the north face. As per your orders, the scouts did not venture very far inside, but they were able to determine that the opening leads into a narrow, spiralling tunnel, and that someone or . . . something . . . is living in there." 

I grimaced. "Monsters, no doubt. It's . . . almost traditional, in such a setting. But it sounds like Belthasar has just raised the tunnel he had underneath his old headquarters to the surface. If I may ask, your Majesty, when were you intending that we leave?" 

"Tomorrow morning," Marus said firmly. "I . . . have some affairs that I must put in order. The rest of you would profit from a good night's rest, I suspect. Spell yourselves to sleep, or have someone do it for you, if you consider that impossible. Janus, you would know more of equipping such an . . . expedition . . . than I would, so I leave all other matters regarding our preparations in your hands." 

I nodded. "One matter that I should cover now," I said, eyeing the three Enlightened who would be part of our group, "is that everyone needs to dress appropriately, in clothing that will give them some freedom of movement. In particular, robes are not a good idea. Assume that you will be walking and climbing quite a bit." 

Talletar looked affronted, and Schala blushed a bit, but Marus just nodded. Ruan looked amused, as well he might: no one in Algetty could afford impractical clothing, not when it was all painstakingly made from leather taken from the hunters' kills. Even the tiniest scrap might be used for piecing, or cut into thongs to use for lashing other pieces together. They couldn't afford to waste such a scarce resource. Which brought something else to mind. 

"Sergeant Vaie," I said. 

"Yes, my lord?" 

"Have our comrades from Algetty equipped out of the officers' stores. They're to have anything they want, within reason. In particular, it would be useful if you could scrounge up some sort of protection against magics that would work for them. For that matter, take whatever you think would be useful for yourself, as well." 

I wondered if anyone else in the room knew enough to recognize that slight dropping of Vaie's jaw as the gargoyle equivalent of a broad grin. "Thank you, my lord. I'll see to it." 

The two Earthbound followed her out, and I aimed a cold, fixed gaze at Talletar. He glared back at me at first, but wilted after a few moments of sustained staring. 

"If you will excuse my, your Majesty, I have matters to attend to. Especially if I must wear _trousers_ on this little expedition of yours." He somehow managed to make a word for an article of clothing sound like an obscenity. 

"Yes, yes, go—and the rest of you as well," Marus said, waving a hand. Talletar and Melchior both left, and Schala moved toward the door, but then hesitated and looked back over her shoulder at Marus and I. 

"Go," I said, as gently as I could manage. "I need to speak to your father alone for a moment." 

"If you feel it necessary . . . but please do not remain too long," Schala said. "Of all of us, you are the one who most needs to rest." 

I bit back the immediate, annoyed response— _I am not made of glass!_ —and said instead. "I know. I'll try to keep this as short as I can." 

One last, lingering glance, and then she left the room and closed the door behind her. 

"You seem to have quite charmed her," Marus observed. "I am still trying to understand how that happened." 

"So am I," I admitted. "But that wasn't what I wanted to talk to you about." 

Marus made a gesture that invited me to continue. 

"Talletar is going to be a problem," I said flatly. "In fact, he may get us all killed if he acts like a fastidious fool in front of Lavos. Why did you choose him as our third mage?" 

"Several reasons. Firstly, he wasn't lying when he claimed to be the most powerful fire-element in Zeal, and he has some experience in casting directly from his element. Secondly, he was a friend of Belthasar's, which could work in our favour." 

"Or cause him to end up switching sides on us," I said. "What else?" 

Marus sighed. "I had hoped that you wouldn't notice that neither of those was a very good reason to have him along, but I should have known better. The third reason is that, should Schala and I fail to return, Talletar is one of the obvious candidates for the throne . . . and the most unfit. Eliminating him . . . may end up being to Zeal's advantage." 

"If neither of you survive, Zeal will probably be destroyed before everyone finishes bickering about the succession," I pointed out. 

"Nevertheless, I owe it to my people to plan for contingencies." 

_I owe it to my people._ What an odd concept, perhaps one that pointed out why I had always been less a ruler than a tyrant. I had never felt I _owed_ those whom I ruled anything. The Mystics had been tools. The people of Guardia, while I had been regent . . . well, the reason I'd taken the job hadn't had anything to do with them. 

"What are you thinking about?" Marus' soft question interrupted my train of thought. 

"Kingship and emotional obligations," I replied. "And why nearly every monarch of Zeal has been a lightning-element. The rest of us . . . perhaps don't see clearly enough." 

Marus gave me a long, thoughtful look. "I do intend to keep Talletar under control, you know. He isn't difficult to manipulate. And all the other people I considered asking to fill the position are just as problematic, although not necessarily for the same reasons." 

I sighed. Well, arranging for the arrogant fire-user to be the first to die probably wouldn't be all that difficult—I would just have to make sure that he didn't drag anyone else down with him. And that neither Schala nor Marus noticed me setting him up . . . although Marus, at least, might understand why I was doing it. 

"It isn't exactly the way I would have chosen to fight for the future of the world either," the king said with a lopsided smile. "However, we have no choice but to use what is available, and proceed as best we can." 

I nodded. "One other question," I added. "Do you intend to take the Sun Stone with us?" 

"Yes," came the flat reply. "We may need what energy is left in it." 

He seemed to be bracing himself for an argument, so I said, "I'm not going to object. Again, if we lose, what happens to it probably won't matter. I was merely surprised that you would be so . . . practical." 

Marus snorted. "Now you sound like a construct— yes, I do have some idea of what they say to each other when they think we can't hear." 

I shrugged. "I was raised by constructs, or more accurately by their descendants. I suppose there are times when it shows through." 

"Indeed. I would go so far as to say that it explains quite a bit. You seem to think we are all . . . a bit soft." 

"You _are_ a bit soft," I said dryly. "When was the last time you had to fight for your survival, O King?" 

"Surely your entire life has not consisted of fighting." 

"Not all," I admitted, "but a great deal of it has. A great deal of it still does," I added, touching Flea's collar. 

"We are all fighting right now," Marus pointed out. Then, "You need your rest, Janus. Obey my daughter and get to bed." 

We truly were more alike than I ever would have imagined—as alike as two people of different element and nearly opposite upbringing could be. Outside the study, I shook my head. Was this what I would have grown up to be, had my father not died and my Zeal never fallen? Perhaps not. _I would never have had his insight._

Thoughts of what might have been continued to nibble at me even when I reached my room and my bed, and fell into an uneasy doze there. 

* * *

_Crono called down the lightnings, and Lavos shuddered, but the floating fragment that seemed to house its brain wasn't yet dead, and it was my job to perform the coup de grace. I spoke the words of my Dark Matter spell, and pointed._

_Nothing happened._

_I stared, horrified, at my own pointing finger as a spell slammed into me and knocked me to the ground. The collar was suddenly choking me, and I couldn't breathe . . ._

It was glaringly obvious what had prompted _that_ nightmare, I thought sourly as I stared out my window at the grey light of dawn, absently stroking young Alfador. Obvious and stupid. I wasn't going to forget myself so far as to attempt an impotent casting. My numb feet and the weight of the metal rings that banded my body at intervals weren't going to let me forget the state I was in no matter what happened around me. 

I pulled out the complex chronometer Lucca had given me. A glance suggested that I had two hours to kill before the others assembled, and no particular preparations to make. Still, there was no point in staying here. I set young Alfador on the bed and wandered out into the palace. 

Even the servants were still mostly asleep. Normally, this would have suited me just fine, but not when I was looking for a distraction. Reading wouldn't do it, not today. Practicing with my scythe might, but it risked tiring me before the expedition even began. Nevertheless, I found my feet following the path down to the constructs' barracks, with their practice fields. 

Unlike the palace proper, the barracks was already awake—or perhaps it would have been more accurate to say that it never entirely slept, since some species of constructs are nocturnal. There was a shift change of sorts going on right now as those nocturnal species headed off to their beds and diurnal ones like gargoyles and imps took their place . . . and of course some of the non-intelligent constructs that were kenneled down here, like the scouts, didn't sleep on any regular schedule. 

My stomach chose that moment to growl, and, although I couldn't say that I genuinely felt hungry, I decided that it was probably wise to give it something to work on. I could smell meat cooking somewhere nearby, and that decided me: rather than going back up to the palace, I would inflict myself on the mess hall. At least if the constructs stared at me as I ate, it would be because the human officers never took advantage of the facilities, rather than because they pitied me for losing my magic. 

When I entered the big room, it turned out to be crowded, with some constructs eating supper, others eating breakfast, and two other humans in the room. I hadn't _forgotten_ about Ruan and Kaya exactly, and it should have occurred to me that Vaie would have them stay down here, where she could order a couple of beds cleared, rather than try to make arrangements up at the palace. _I have to stop letting my own problems distract me so thoroughly,_ I thought. 

Vaie had clearly followed my orders in giving them the run of the officers' supplies. Kaya now wore light armour over her leather clothing, and Ruan . . . well, he had taken the opportunity for a full makeover, replacing his leathers with a uniform and his stone spear with a steel-tipped one. He'd even shaved off his beard. To someone as aura-blind as I presently was, he could easily have been an ordinary junior officer in the security forces, assigned to eat in the constructs' mess as a punishment for some minor infraction. 

Many heads turned briefly to stare as I loaded a tray from the massive buffet of food, but I had a suspicion that that was because most of my selection consisted of marinated raw fish. By the time I was done, a familiar gargoyle had appeared by my elbow. 

"Sir, would you care to join us?" Vaie asked. 

"Very well." I had already figured out that there wasn't a single empty table in the room, so I would have had to take my tray outside if I wanted to be alone . . . and the truth was that I didn't. 

Ruan frankly stared at my tray as I sat down. "You have weird taste in food." 

"I have an odd metabolism," I corrected, pinning one rolled raw fillet to my plate with my chopsticks so that I could carve off a bite-sized portion with a small, sharp knife. 

The fish was excellent, the herbs in the marinade complementing its flavour beautifully, and I was about to make some comment about the security forces eating better than royalty when Ruan spoke again. 

"You know, the more I see of you, the less human you seem." 

I gave him a cold look. "If you're trying to provoke me, you're going to have to come up with something a bit more original. And if you _do_ manage to provoke me, you might want to keep in mind that I'm not in the habit of doing things halfway. Sending your corpse back to your grandfather would be less than politic, granted, so I'd have to kill you quietly and drop you in the ocean. And kill any witnesses as well. Right now, I can't afford to have you challenging my authority." 

"You're not worried that people might notice?" 

"Oh, I'm certain that people would speculate, but I'm not so much of a fool as to leave enough evidence behind to let anyone prove anything." Something about his expression caused me to add, "Are you done taking my measure yet?" 

Ruan actually laughed. "Grandfather did say that you were way out of my league. He thinks the reason we'd never heard of you before you turned up as Princess Schala's escort is that you're the head of Zeal's secret police." 

"Since what passes for an intelligence service here reports to me as Head of Security, I suppose you could say that I am," I replied with a shrug. 

"But that's a recent thing," Ruan said. "No one seems to know where you came from before you rescued Princess Schala and brought her back here." 

"Still fishing for information?" I asked acidically. "I've been away from Zeal for a long time, that's all. And you are still being deliberately tactless—either that, or your grandfather hasn't trained you very well, which I don't believe." 

Ruan shook his head. "You frighten me, you know." 

"All that proves is that you're alive and have met him," Vaie said, then swallowed visibly. "Um, sorry, sir." 

"Don't worry," I said dryly. "I won't punish you for adding to my reputation." 

"You . . . enjoy frightening people?" Ruan asked, frowning. 

"Not 'enjoy'," I corrected. "But it can be useful. There are two ways to lead people effectively. The first requires you to get them to love you. Schala has that ability, and I suspect you do as well . . . but I don't. Therefore, I have to fall back on getting them to fear me." 

Having said more than I intended, I gave a show of turning my attention to my plate . . . but I was really watching Ruan, as the young Earthbound stared at me thoughtfully and toyed with the remains of his meal. _And how much more difficult will he be to control now that I've talked to him about my methods?_ I wondered sourly. _I really am getting soft. In the old days, I would have kept my mouth shut and not cared about what he thought of me._

_Of course, in the old days, I wouldn't even have imagined that the content of our conversation could get back to Schala. Either Schala._

It wasn't just Ruan who was watching me, I noticed as I ate another bite of my fish. Kaya was eyeing me as well. The Earthbound woman had barely spoken three words in my hearing since she had introduced herself in Algetty, and I wondered what had possessed her to join our group. Marus, Schala, Ruan, Talletar, Vaie . . . them I could at least read, but of Kaya I knew nothing, and that made me automatically suspicious. 

_I will have to keep an eye on her._

Any hope I might have had—and in truth, I hadn't had much—of our group being able to quietly slip away from the environs of the palace and climb the spire vanished when the four of us left the barracks and saw the number of people gathered on the grounds of the palace proper. If the lawns and gardens hadn't already been winter-killed, the trampling would have finished them off. 

Several squads of Lashers and Thrashers were scattered about the area, trying to keep order. Vaie signaled the nearest one, and they opened a path through the crowd for us. I walked up the narrow clear aisle with my shoulders squared, looking neither right nor left, to where Marus, Schala, and Talletar were waiting. Schala slipped her hand into mine the moment I reached them. 

All three of them had taken my advice and dressed practically, although, truth be hold, practicality didn't suit Talletar at all. His hands kept twitching against his trousered legs in a way that would have been concealed by the skirts of a robe. Schala, by contrast, had thrown herself into the spirit of things and acquired herself a vest of silver chainmail to go along with her trousers and high boots. Judging from the spell subtly diagrammed around the edges, the armour might have dated back to the Enlightened/Earthbound wars of many centuries ago, before Zeal had been raised into the sky. It certainly hadn't come from the armoury of the Security Forces. 

I noticed something else, and almost burst out laughing. Armoured vest, sash, boots . . . Schala had chosen clothing and equipment roughly similar to mine, although she was wearing a shirt rather than a cloak. She even had a pair of gloves thrust through her sash, although she hadn't put them on yet. 

It was inevitable that Marus would give a speech, but I didn't bother to listen to it. Instead, I pretended I could feel Schala's fingers through my glove and the numbing influence of Melchior's drug, pretended with such concentrated attention that by the time Marus' speech was over, I would have sworn that I really did feel them. 

It took three squads of Thrashers to clear a way through to the back of the palace gardens for us. Someone had apparently worked out how to get the Earthbound up to the cave opening that would let us into the spire, because Ruan's and Kaya's feet left the ground when everyone else's did. I smiled thinly as I saw the younger Earthbound windmilling his arms in the air, trying to find his balance, although Kaya took the whole thing with the same stolid patience she'd shown throughout our acquaintance. Yes, there was definitely something a bit odd about that woman. 

The entrance to the cave was too narrow to accommodate more than two people at a time. Marus glanced at me, and I pointed at Vaie and Talletar. _Let them go first._ Vaie was already moving to obey when the king nodded. Talletar scowled and followed the gargoyle. We sent the two Earthbound down next, and then it was my turn, and Schala's. 

I landed just inside the mouth of the cave, then immediately moved forward to make room for Marus. Only when I was certain that I was clear did I take the time to look around. 

This did indeed appear to be the top of the spiral tunnel I had climbed down in order to confront Belthasar in front of the Frozen Flame, and I allowed myself a momentary grimace as I remembered the strain that descending the thing, and then climbing back up, had put on my legs. _Perhaps I should have insisted on tunneling down through the sea bed, or at least blasting through the side of this thing lower down . . ._ but either option might have taken days, and we might not have days to spare. 

Marus, Schala, and Talletar all conjured various sorts of light. Before I could say anything, Talletar sent his around the curve and deeper into the spiral . . . and by doing so, demonstrated that we weren't alone. 

What jumped, or more accurately lumbered, out at us was one of the ugly two-headed creatures that Glenn had nicknamed ruminators—as a joke, I could only presume, since the teeth showed clearly that the creature was carnivorous. Fortunately, they weren't magic-resistant . . . but despite that, we nearly lost Vaie, because Talletar panicked and fired off a spell that nearly incinerated the gargoyle along with the monster. 

The moment the ruminator was dead, impaled on Ruan's spear, I walked up to the fire-element and punched him in the jaw—not hard enough to break it, although I was tempted, but I did knock him down and leave him with a nascent bruise. 

"What in _hell_ did you think you were doing?" I asked him coldly, looming over him as he lay awkwardly on his back, feet higher than his head due to the slant of the tunnel, rubbing at his jaw and staring at me with a confused expression. I don't think anyone had ever hit him before—certainly not since he was a child and playing with other children. 

"I was _trying_ to kill the monster." The shock had vanished from his face, to be replaced with irritation. "Did you want to take it home as a pet?" 

"Were you paying any attention at all to what else was in your line of fire?" I snapped. 

"What? Oh, the gargoyle. You hit me over _that_?" 

"I hit you because you nearly killed an ally for _nothing_. Your job is to stay _behind_ those of us who are armed and attack around or above us. If you can't get a clear shot at whatever we're fighting, then _don't do anything_ , do you understand me?" 

"I understand you." The irritation in his eyes was becoming hatred. 

I gave him a cold smile. "And just in case you were thinking of frying me from behind, keep in mind that my passive defenses are still strong enough that you're not going to be able to kill me with just one attack . . . and you won't get the chance for a second." 

Talletar sat up and looked over at Marus. "Your Majesty, are you going to let him get away with this?" 

That was, of course, the sticking point. Marus had never officially _said_ that I was in charge of this expedition, although he had implied it by placing the preparations in my hands. 

"Yes, I am," the king said in an even tone of voice, and I relaxed infinitesimally. "For the time being, we are all in the Security Forces—myself included." 

Talletar scowled, and it was definitely hatred, dark and thick, that I saw in his eyes and his face. "I suppose I have no choice, then." 

"No," I said flatly. "You don't." 

I waited a moment longer, then stepped back to give him a little space, so that he would feel more comfortable getting up. 

Vaie, in the meanwhile, had been examining the dead ruminator. "Sir, this creature . . . can we expect more like it?" 

"I'm certain we can, and several other types of monster as well," I said. "Probably many of the same ones as I encountered at the same time as I last ran into these—" I prodded the corpse with my booted foot. "—although I expect Belthasar will have come up with some new and unpleasant ones as well. I'll describe the ones I do know about as we continue down." 

I was right about the new and unpleasant monsters, unfortunately. Along with the creatures I recognized from the Black Omen, we encountered many . . . things . . . I had never seen before. Some were merely annoying: quick-moving insects with a paralytic poison in their bites that could only be effectively taken down by area magics, a huge lumbering snail with a steel shell which was easy to kill once it was blinded, and the small creatures with sucking mouths that dropped from the ceiling without warning. Some, however, were among the most dangerous opponents I had ever faced. Belthasar seemed to have become particularly enamoured of creatures that used corrosives—by spitting them, having skin coated in acidic slime, or bleeding a steaming yellow liquid that tried to dissolve our weapons even as we attacked. Some of them also resisted magic, making the business of killing them difficult and messy. And there was one other creature that spat an adhesive substance like spider silk, which was a mere nuisance when encountered alone but a serious danger when it appeared alongside something else. 

There were, as I recalled, some fifty turns in the spiralling tunnel, and it felt like it took us days to fight our way through the first half, although Lucca's chronometer, when I consulted it, told me it had been only perhaps three hours. The flattest part of the tunnel was near the halfway point, and I called for a rest there. 

Talletar immediately collapsed into a sitting position against the tunnel wall, muttering complaints under his breath about the lack of chairs. Ruan and Kaya sat as well, as far from the fire-mage as they could manage in such a small, enclosed space without losing sight of the rest of us. Vaie continued a few steps on down the spiral before squatting down in a position that would allow her to move quickly if necessary. 

I leaned against the wall and watched self-cleaning spells slowly deal with the blood that slicked the blades of my scythe and splattered my clothing. My leg muscles were already protesting the descent of the tunnel, and I was afraid that if I sat down, they would stiffen up. 

A slender hand came to rest against my arm. "What are you thinking?" Schala asked softly. 

I sighed. "That we're all going to be very tired when we reach the bottom. The number of monsters in here is . . . much larger than I remember from our attempt to deal with my own world's Lavos. Of course, it didn't try to cram every single monster into a single narrow tunnel, either." 

"Presumably, tiring us is part of the point," Marus said from just beyond Schala. 

I smiled thinly. "Oh, I don't doubt that. It is, after all, an obvious ploy. Although . . . I do wonder if it isn't _too_ obvious. And furthermore, this has been annoying and exhausting, but not particularly _difficult_. Which means that we need to be on guard. Belthasar must have additional obstacles in store for us." Carefully, oh-so-carefully, I banished the image of a Lavos-spawn wedged into this narrow tunnel backwards, with only the shell accessible, from my mind. Belthasar might have used such a ploy to play for time, but that wasn't what he was trying to do here. If he'd wanted us to stay away, he would never have produced the spire in the first place. 

"The question is, where will we come upon them?" Marus said. 

"Probably near the bottom," I said. "To ensure that we're as tired as possible before hitting them, if nothing else. Of course, if he's listening to us right now, he may decide to move them up, just to catch us off-guard." Something tickled the side of my neck, and I swiped a hand irritably across the spot. 

Unexpectedly, Schala grabbed my wrist as I lowered my hand again. "Janus, you are bleeding." 

I shrugged. "It can't be more than a scratch." And with Melchior's potion in my veins, I couldn't feel it anyway. 

"Nevertheless . . ." She reached up and smoothed my hair away from my ear, frowned, and murmured a minor healing spell. "There. It should be alright now. But please stop attempting to pretend that your wounds are not serious. Melchior told me that your body's healing ability is impaired." 

I frowned. "A detail which he failed to mention to me." _Although I should have realized as much._ It didn't exactly take a brilliant mind to realize that the quick, scarless healing I normally enjoyed was a function of the magic I no longer had. 

"We _will_ find some way to get that collar off you," Schala said firmly. 

I said nothing, wishing that I had her optimism. The thought of dying would once not have disturbed me, but now . . . Letting it cross my mind with her standing right there beside me was like swallowing broken glass. I wanted to live, wanted to be with her, this other Schala who seemed to return my feelings as I had never dared asked my sister to do. 

_I will not let Flea win,_ I told myself. 

But all I said was, "Enough rest. It's time to move on." 

When Belthasar's trap finally did appear, it did so without warning and caught us all. 

We were in the middle of fighting a ruminator which was accompanied by a trio of the annoying glue spitters when the floor suddenly disappeared out from under us. I instinctively tried to catch myself with magic, and, failing, muttered a curse which was swallowed up by the tumultuous sensation of passing through a Gate. 

We were spat out some distance above ground at the other end, and I twisted in midair, trying to avoid landing on anyone. I did manage to avoid the other members of my own party, but ended up squashing one of the glue-spitters with my shoulder. The creature's innate adhesive qualities made the half- pulped remains cling almost comically to the fabric of my cape, and I tore them angrily away as I sat up, careful not to get them stuck to my glove. 

A quick look around told me where we were, but not _why_. Zeal's palace loomed above us, and I could hear the sound of distant surf telling me that we were on the surface, but when had the sky cleared enough to let us see the sunset? 

Was this the future? The _possible_ future _,_ I corrected myself—who knew better than I did that events were not set in stone? Or was this a pocket dimension created for our benefit, a fragment floating in the Darkness Beyond Time . . . even a pure illusion? Without the collar, I might have been able to tell, and I cursed Flea bitterly as I heaved myself to my feet. 

One thing was certain: If Belthasar had deliberately sent us to this time and place, there was something waiting for us here. Something that we weren't going to like. 

Thankfully, the others all seemed to have survived the fall intact, and Vaie had landed on top of the ruminator and taken advantage of their relative positions to drive a knife into the creature's heart. The gargoyle sergeant grinned at me as she wiped blood from her beak. The other two glue-spitters were lying on the ground with char marks on their leathery skins, killed by Marus or by Talletar. 

Marus, in fact, was already on his feet, and staring at the distant palace. 

"It is too warm here," he observed quietly as I moved to stand beside him. 

I nodded, although until that moment I hadn't really noticed the absence of snow. My flesh was too numb for me to be able to distinguish temperatures with any certainty. 

"It's very likely that this isn't the real palace," I said. "And even if it is, more time may well have elapsed here than we've experienced since we left." 

"Time travel, you mean," the king said. "The question is, why send us here?" 

"We should probably try to find that out," I admitted. "The alternative is for me to try to teach you a time travel spell right here and now, and hope that there's enough energy left in the Sun Stone to support it. And that this place is genuinely what it seems, and not an elaborate illusion created to ensnare us. We'll take a look at the palace. And everyone is to keep an eye out for anything that seems out of place. If this is an illusion, the easiest way to dispel it is to find some kind of break in it." 

Talletar glared at me. "I do _not_ need your advice regarding illusions." 

I gave him a fang-baring smile. "No? And yet I suspect that I know far more about them than you do, as a consequence of my element if nothing else." _Damned fool._ I had a feeling that I was going to get very tired of butting heads with Talletar by the time this was over. 

It was in the gardens, under an archway made of flowering vines growing over a framework, that we found the first body: a Thrasher, lying face down in a pool of blood, his weapon fallen from his hand. Schala gasped and turned away from the sight, and I folded her gently in my arms. 

"It's alright," I murmured in her ear. "It probably isn't real . . . and even if it is, it can be changed." Talletar, I noted, had disappeared behind a hedge to our left, and I could hear retching sounds coming from that direction as I stroked Schala's hair. 

"I am well," she whispered after a moment. "It was . . . only the shock." 

I sighed, not wanting to tell her that by the time we found our way out of here, she might well find herself quite hardened to such sights. 

"If you think you'll be alright without me, I should try to see if I can find out how he died," I said. She swallowed, and nodded, and a moment later, I was crouching beside the body. 

Whatever had happened, it hadn't taken place all that long ago, I decided: the pool of blood in which the body was lying was still liquid in the center, although the edges had dried to crusty brown. A few hours ago, perhaps? I had seen a lot of death, but I was no forensic investigator. 

I sighed and rolled the body over onto its back. The cause of death became apparent immediately: someone had put several holes into the unfortunate construct's chest. They could have been made by a spear, or a thrusting blade . . . or a spell, in theory, although most attack spells were more likely to leave their victims fried or frozen or electrocuted than perforated. There was blood on his weapon, too, I noted as I straightened up, even though it had fallen outside the pool in which he rested. 

"He was killed in a fight," I told the others. "His attacker most likely used a physical weapon. Be alert." 

Talletar was in the process of emerging from behind the bushes as I said that. He took one look at the corpse, gagged, and disappeared again. We had to wait until he was done behind the bushes before moving on. 

A little deeper into the gardens, and we came to a tableau of additional corpses which made it clear who we were supposed to think had been fighting here: two gargoyles and a Lasher lay tangled in a pile with a pair of humans clad in rough leather. 

"Another Enlightened/Earthbound war," I observed, prodding one of the corpses with the toe of my boot. "How . . . unoriginal." 

"But effective," Marus pointed out. "Any of us might find a loved one here, dead on the battlefield. Potentially, dead at the hands of a comrade's loved one. We all need to remember that this is not reality." 

_Unless it is—in which case, we're going to have to change it._ But I didn't say that aloud. 

The displays got progressively gorier as we penetrated closer to the palace. We found the first dead Enlightened artistically displayed in the bowl of an ornamental fountain, his blood tainting the water. I didn't bother flipping over the corpse to see if I recognized him or not; it was better to leave him there, floating, with his green hair splayed in a loose spider around his head. Char marks on a nearby Earthbound corpse suggested he might have been a fire-element . . . or the burning might have been the work of some construct trying to defend him, since there was no guarantee that he would have known any attack spells at all. 

Talletar's face was almost the same colour as the corpse's hair, although his stomach was apparently now empty. 

"There's going to be more, and worse," I warned him . . . and the others, although even Schala seemed to be holding up better than Talletar. "If you don't think you can deal with that, stay near the center of the group and keep your eyes on your feet." 

The fire-user gave me a glare—not a particularly impressive one, since he apparently hadn't figured out that it's difficult to glare effectively while simultaneously trying to give yourself an air of superiority over your target. Especially if your target is taller than you are. In any case, he wilted within seconds when I turned my gaze on him. 

"We're wasting time," I added. "I suspect that being caught out in the open after nightfall might not be healthy here. If we can't find our way out before dark, we need to at least locate a defensible position." 

"Sir, if I may suggest?" Vaie said, and I nodded at her to continue. "There is a section of the secondary armoury, in the palace basement, that we should be able to barricade securely. It's awkward to get to and hasn't been used in years, so I doubt we'll . . . find anything . . . down there." 

"Thank you, Sergeant," I said. "If we can't find our way out, that's where we'll go." 

The carnage continued to get worse as we entered the shadow of the towers. Where we had been seeing single corpses, we now were being treated to piles of them, often dismembered or grotesquely mutilated. Some of it was enough to make even me feel a bit uncomfortable: even the worse excesses of the Mystic Wars had never involved strangling an infant with its mother's intestines. At least there was no evidence of cannibalism—perhaps the idea simply hadn't occurred to Belthasar, since there wasn't even a word for it in High Zeala. 

Our cautious advance brought us to a side door just as the sun dipped fully below the horizon. We couldn't have been moving through the devastated landscape for much more than half an hour, but the necessary search for enemies every time the wind off the ocean made a leaf rustle was exhausting us all. 

"It isn't even noon for us," Schala observed as Vaie pushed the door open, "but I feel as though I could sleep for hours." 

"We are due for another rest, and a meal," I said. "As soon as we find some place reasonably safe." 

"Nothing's moving inside," Vaie said. "I'll take point . . . if you don't mind, sir." 

"If you hadn't offered, I would have ordered you to," I said. "You probably know the layout of the palace better than any of us—I know I've never completely explored the servants' corridors." 

"I did," Marus said unexpectedly. "A very long time ago. There was a great deal of mischief available there for a young boy to get into." 

"Indeed." And I probably would have gotten into some of it myself, had I not been bedridden for so much of my childhood. Or perhaps I could be said to have done so anyway: it had been following Alfador through some of those passageways that had given me the opportunity to sneak into the Ocean Palace to observe the activation of the Mammon Machine during my own world's original, untampered history. 

"This way," Vaie said, ducking into the mouth of a narrow passageway. 

At first it looked like we were going to get away with it. The etheric lighting in the servants' hallways still functioned even though those who had cast the spells involved were most likely dead, and there were relatively few bodies. 

Then we turned a corner and found a dead Heckran in the way. 

We all stood there for a moment, looking at the giant lump of meat. Hacking it apart would have been a tedious, draining job, and blasting it to ashes would waste energy we might need later on. 

"Is there a way around?" Ruan asked. 

Vaie nodded. "We'll have to detour through the main corridors for a bit, though, and it may be . . . messy." 

"No worse than the gardens, I expect," I said. "What concerns me more is that I doubt that this is random. Watch for signs that we're being herded." 

"Yes, sir." 

I was wrong. It was, in some ways, worse than the gardens. Out there, it had been possible to deceive oneself that the sunset light was causing things to appear red that were really some other colour. The brighter daylight-mimicking illumination in the public parts of the palace would not allow anyone to entertain such illusions. Furthermore, the main corridors were carpeted, and that carpet had soaked up blood from the very corpses that were strewn around us, causing it to make a squelching sound underfoot as we walked. 

When we made to turn off into the servants' corridors again, there was another convenient Heckran in the way. Vaie's beak twisted into a frown. 

"We can try getting to the stairway I'm thinking of via the main hallways, but I believe you're right, sir. We're being herded. The only question is, where to?" 

My fingers absently traced the top edge of the steel crescent hanging at my hip. "If I had to guess, either the throne room or the Hall of the Flame. Otherwise, it would be . . . anticlimactic." 

The corner of Marus' mouth quirked upward. "Belthasar may not be aware of that rule." 

I shook my head. "He'll know it: he spent quite some time working with Flea, and Flea was nothing if not a showman. In any case, it's an easy enough surmise to test: all we have to do is head in that general direction for a while, and see if we find any more Heckran. The alternative is simply stopping right here in the middle of the hallway and seeing if anything finds us." 

"You want us to rest in the middle of all _this_?" Talletar waved his hand, a gesture that took in the blood-soaked carpet, the splattered walls, and the various corpses. 

"We aren't likely to find anything better," I said. "Belthasar will be trying to keep us off-balance." 

"I don't think I could relax here, much less eat," Schala said softly. 

"Then we go on," I said. "I would advise everyone not to look too closely at the bodies. From here on, I suspect they _will_ be people we know, displayed in such a way that we will be able to recognize them." 

"I'm surprised he hasn't tried that already," Ruan said. 

I smiled bleakly. "He's aiming for maximum effect, which requires everything to be delivered with a certain rhythm, beginning with the subtle and ending with the grossly horrific. We're past the subtle part of his offerings now." 

"This was _subtle_?" Talletar said, gesturing again at the blood and the bodies. 

I shook my head. "I think we actually passed that stage outside. Although I suppose it's possible that Belthasar has come up with a finale for this that's uglier than even I could think of—and I've had some practice in designing this sort of scenario." 

They were all watching me now, with various expressions on their faces. Ruan was almost approving, Marus thoughtful, Vaie neutral, Schala sad, Talletar disgusted, and Kaya . . . There was something going on behind the Earthbound woman's eyes, I was certain of that, but she was being very careful to keep the rest of us from figuring out exactly what it was. 

"That's probably the shortest way," Vaie said, pointing at the mouth of a carpeted corridor that led off at right angles to the one we were standing in. 

I nodded. "Then let's get moving." 

I did recognize some of the bodies we saw from that point on, including the ones in the pile that didn't quite block the corridor at one point. I think Talletar was fool enough to look at least one of the corpses in the face, because I heard him dry- heaving. If I had known exactly how weak a stomach the fool mage had, I would have insisted that he be left behind no matter what Marus thought of it. Schala, on the other hand, was holding up quite well, and I felt oddly . . . proud . . . of her for that. 

The Great Hall's contents continued the trend of increasing ugliness. There were piles of corpses everywhere, and so much blood had been shed that the lowest parts of the floor were literally awash. A burning book floating in the blood, its spells against being damaged by liquid preventing it from sinking, threw flickering, bizarre shadows on the walls. 

I shook my head. _There is no way this can be real. The corpses would have had to be systematically exsanguinated to create this much of a mess, and there aren't any signs of that that I can see. That means that this reality truly is Belthasar's creation. How . . . comforting._

Fortunately, the corridor had brought us out on the second level, and we didn't need to splash through the blood. If we had, I suspect Talletar would have fainted. Squelching over the carpets was bad enough: they were all soaked, and the one leading up the center of the room had acted like wicking, drawing up blood even when there were no corpses nearby. 

It was on it that we stopped, with the stairs to the throne room in front of us and those that led to the Hall of the Flame on our left. 

"We might as well try the throne room first," I said. No one argued, so I led the way up the stairs, carpet squelching with every step. 

The throne room was . . . spectacular, if one is addicted to macabre spectacles. Most of the corpses had been torn apart and scattered about the room in the form of disembodied limbs and random chunks of torso, but three had been deliberately left intact, and carefully positioned so that I, at least, could readily identify them. 

Queen Aleana Zeal had been pinned to the throne with several spears through her torso . . . rather like what the Porreans had done to Marle's father, old King Guardia, all those years ago. She had frozen in death with the middle and ring fingers of her left hand curled in against the palm and the other fingers extended in what I recognized as a classic casting gesture for one of the more powerful lightning-based attack spells, and char marks on the walls, floor, and some of the strewn body parts suggested she'd succeeded in using it at least once. 

The other two whole bodies were behind and to the left of the throne, tangled together, the smaller held in the arms of the larger. Seeing Schala's face white and bloodless, eyes open but empty, disturbed me somewhat even though I knew it wasn't real. And as for the smaller figure she was holding in her arms . . . well, I wondered if anyone but me would recognize little Prince Janus. 

Marus mouthed my mother's name, but no sound came out. He tried to take a step closer to the throne, but I blocked him with my arm. 

"This isn't real," I told him. "Think. How could she be here? How could your son, who was never born, be here? This was created for maximum shock value, nothing more." 

Marus shook his head violently. "You are quite right. My apologies. For a moment, my emotions overwhelmed my reason." 

"That was no doubt exactly what Belthasar intended— " I stopped in mid-sentence and tilted my head. Everyone in our party was inside the room, but I would have sworn that that faint slithering sound had come from outside . . . 

There it was again: slithering and shuffling. I pulled my scythe from its invisible hiding place. 

"Something's coming," I warned the others. Kaya and Vaie immediately moved forward to shield the mages, and Ruan started to do so as well, but stopped in mid-motion and made a wordless sound incorporating both surprise and disgust. My head whipped around just in time to see the queen's corpse, which had its hands tangled in Ruan's clothing, lunge up off the throne and try to bite him on the neck. 

I decapitated the undead creature with a swipe of my scythe, then cut its arms off with two more . . . but the dead fingers still wouldn't release the young Earthbound. Cutting the tendons to deprive them of their leverage, without harming their victim, was a delicate operation. I forced myself to concentrate for the split second necessary, even though I knew what might be coming through the doors any moment now. 

"We need to burn everything in here," I snapped. "Every fragment of dead flesh, every bone . . . all of it needs to be reduced to ash. Talletar, that's your job. Vaie, bar the door— that should at least give us a little respite from the ones outside." 

"You think that all of the corpses we saw on the way in are being animated as well," Marus said. 

I shrugged. "I can hear things moving outside the room. I can't guarantee that _all_ of them are being animated, but even if it's just some subset of the ones inside the building, we're in trouble. The typical setup for animating a large number of zombies without the caster having to touch each one involves a master talisman to key the effect and a ring of lesser talismans to amplify and limit it. I would have noticed something that looks like the master talisman if we'd passed it on the way in, so it's either hidden or in some part of the building that we haven't explored yet. Damn you, Talletar, _burn those bodies._ " The fire-user was staring glassily at nothing, and I slapped him across the face. The bits of flesh scattered around the room were beginning to twitch, and disembodied arms and heads could still be dangerous. 

"You know far too much about necromancy," Talletar accused. 

"It's an aspect of my element," I reminded him acidically. " _Cast,_ damn you!" Some of the arms were starting to crawl out of the pile of flesh-bits, and off to my right somewhere, I could hear Vaie cursing as she fended off Schala's corpse. 

"I can do it, if he will not," Marus said, his hand descending to touch a pocket which I presumed to hold the Sun Stone. "Although I admit that I would prefer not to waste this." 

"N-no, your Majesty, that won't be necessary." But Talletar took the time to give me another evil look before speaking the fire spell that turned the first assortment of corpse- bits into ash. 

It would take several spells to clear the room without incinerating us as well, and I turned my attention to fending off the various bits and pieces attacking us. I used the side of my scythe blade as a shovel to fling disembodied limbs and heads at the walls . . . and occasionally a couple of bits of torso, too, although it hadn't occurred to me until I saw exposed intestines waving around in the air that they could conceivably be used to strangle someone, like that infant we had seen outside. 

As for the three bodies that had been intact when we entered, the Queen's was pinned to the throne and incapable of heaving itself up and off the impaling spears without arms, little Prince Janus seemed to have developed a fascination with Kaya, who, stone-faced, used the butt of her spear to repeatedly knock the child-zombie away . . . and Ruan, looking vaguely sick, was contending gingerly with Schala's animated corpse alongside Vaie, whose weapons weren't really suited to the task. Taking pity on the young Earthbound, I stepped forward and swung my scythe in a vertical arc, cleaving the zombie open from crown to crotch. 

"It's just meat, you fool," I snapped, although I was feeling a little sick myself. "Don't let yourself get distracted." 

Flame seared more of the corpse-bits to ash, but I could hear something thumping against the door: more animated corpses, attempting to breach the room from the outside. There weren't many of them yet, and they weren't very well coordinated, but eventually I expected that sheer force of numbers would destroy the barrier holding them out. We needed another escape route. The narrow passage behind the throne that led back to the royal family's quarters was one possibility, provided that it wasn't blocked. If it was . . . then we would have to create an exit. 

I ran over to the discreet little door hidden behind the throne, wrenched it open . . . and was immediately confronted with the rear end of another heckran, its claws scrabbling for purchase as it tried to back out through the suddenly empty space. Immediately, I slammed the door again. True, we could have burned the heckran into ashes, but I was willing to bet that the hallway on the other side of it would be wall-to-wall zombies as well, and Talletar's power was finite. Already the fire-mage was drinking ether before attacking another pile of corpse-bits. And the sounds outside the main door were getting louder. 

_Think,_ I told myself. If we weren't going to use one of the existing doors, we would have to create an exit for ourselves somewhere else. Blowing out one wall would place us in the royal quarters, which were probably full of zombies as well. The other would give us access to the Hall of the Flame—or possibly the Hall of the Mammon Machine, given that this place seemed to have been somehow modeled after my home universe, something which I didn't like one bit but had no time to worry about just then. Trying to go through the ceiling might end up crushing us under falling debris _and_ would give a clear route into the room to any zombies on the floor above. Down . . . I had no idea what was down, except for some portion of the cellars. Or this might have been one of the parts of the building that rested directly on the bedrock. 

I could feel my lip rising slightly to bare my fangs. _We're being herded again._ The conclusion was inescapable, but I couldn't think of a damned thing we could do about it. 

I touched Marus' arm. "Can you take out that wall?" I asked, jerking my chin in the direction of the Hall of the Flame. 

Instead of replying, Marus lifted his hand and spoke a spell that made the stone of the wall puff into dust over a six- foot-square area. I had braced myself against a sudden inundation of zombies, but nothing came through the opening except blood-coloured light. 

Flipping aggressive disembodied hands out of my way, I moved forward until I could see more than vague shapes through the dust still filling the hole in the wall. However, I didn't have to be able to see what was on the other side with perfect clarity to be able to recognize the lumpish shape of the Mammon Machine. I swore vilely and leaped forward through the gap. 

"Someone distract this thing!" I snapped, and saw the dust move as gargoyle wings stirred the air. Then something metallic whizzed past my ear—probably one of the disc-shaped throwing weapons Vaie carried. I heard the sound again as it returned to her hand, but I was already edging to one side. I knew more about the construction of the Mammon Machine than I really wanted to . . . including the fact that its back was almost unarmoured. If I could get around behind it without it lashing out at me while I was too close to it to dodge, I would be able to put an end to it with a single attack. 

The whole thing went almost as though Vaie and I had rehearsed it: the Mammon Machine ignored my apparently non-aggressive presence as I eeled my way through the narrow gap between its side and the wall in favour of clashing with Vaie. When I was all the way behind it, I reversed my scythe and thrust the butt-spike into the gaping space between the protective plates, and stirred it around a bit just to make sure it damaged something vital. The machine shuddered as the energy went out of it. 

I heard a crash from inside the throne room, and a moment later, the rest of the party began to back through the gap in the wall. Talletar tripped over the low lip Marus had left at the bottom and nearly fractured his skull, eliciting a thin smile from me. 

Something brushed against my arm, and I turned to find Schala at my side. 

"What is that . . . thing?" she asked, gesturing at the Mammon Machine. "The concentration of shadow energy inside it makes me feel . . ." And she shuddered, letting the motion stand in for something that mere words could not convey. 

I frowned. " _Shadow_ energy? Are you certain?" 

She nodded. "It feels almost like . . . one of your transport spells . . ." 

My frown deepened, and I turned back to our former mechanical attacker. Something that felt like one of the transport spells I had used in her presence—could it be . . . ? 

"Keep the zombies busy," I said. 

"What do you think we're doing?" Ruan snapped back over his shoulder as he kicked an undead Lasher in the gut. 

I ignored that, already busy using my scythe as a pry- bar to force open the Mammon Machine's shell and give me a better look at what was inside. I had to tear out tangles of wires and crystals and complex magico-mechanical bits and pieces in order to get to the center, where the Frozen Flame should have rested. I say _should have_ because what I actually found in there was a purple-black void: a Gate, which, now that it was no longer encapsulated inside the machine, was expanding. 

I shook my head. _Belthasar, Belthasar . . . what were you thinking? Did you really hope that what we found here would kill us? Or has this entire little charade been a simple attempt to shake our resolve? If you were so afraid of us, why didn't you just stay beneath the ocean floor and force us to waste time and energy digging down to you, instead of rolling out a welcome spire?_

A possibility struck me, and I almost laughed. Almost. _This can't possibly be about me, can it? I_ can't _have frightened you that much just by being difficult to predict even with Flea's help. All this just to make sure I can't interfere with your plans later on? Preposterous. Wasted effort. But if I have you running scared . . . that makes our job that little bit easier, because it will make you cautious and conservative, unwilling to take chances even when doing so would be sensible. We should be able to use that somehow._

"What is _that_?" Talletar was staring at the Gate as though he expected it to jump out and bite him. Well, he hadn't gotten a good look at the one who had brought us here, so I supposed his discomfort was reasonable. 

"Our exit," I replied. "Vaie, if you would . . . ?" 

The gargoyle's lower jaw dropped slightly open in what I recognized as a smile. "If what I find on the other side turns out to be worse than the zombies, sir . . . it was nice knowing you." 

Before I could come up with a reply, Vaie had slipped past the remains of the Mammon Machine's armour and into the Gate, where she vanished. 

"I will go next," Schala said firmly, and eeled her way into the gap before I could stop her. Hopefully Vaie had had enough sense to move away from her landing point . . . and hopefully there wasn't anything on the other side that would result in either of them dying before I got there. 

I glanced around the room, noting that the gap in the wall was starting to fill up with zombies and that disembodied hands were scuttling across the floor like so many malformed spiders. Whatever was on the other side of the Gate had to be better than this . . . but knowing that didn't make it easier to decide who to send through next. 

A word and a gesture from Marus sent lightning at the wall of zombies, making several of them explode messily and giving Ruan a brief respite in which to shout, "Janus, go! We'll play rear guard!" 

I hesitated for a moment, my instincts tearing me in two different directions, then reached over and tapped Marus on the shoulder. 

"Give me a few seconds to get clear, then follow me," I told him, and he nodded, eyes remaining fixed on what was on the other side of the gap in the wall. 

I had to return my scythe to nothingness in order to fit through the Mammon Machine's ruptured armour—the blade was just too awkward. Then the Gate picked me up, whirled me around, and slammed me down on a familiar blue moire surface. 

I rolled away from my landing point before picking myself up. Once I was on my feet, I immediately placed myself between Schala and the great, shadowy, spiked bulk rising in front of me, although it didn't seem to have noticed us yet. _Lavos._ I raked the alien creature with my gaze, searching for signs of Belthasar, frowning as I found none. Gil's description of what Serge's party had found when they'd confronted the Time Devourer suggested that the former Guru should have been frozen in a crystal on the thing's forehead, but all I could see there was spiky shell. Perhaps the presence of the Frozen Flame had made a difference, or the fact that Belthasar had been a more willing victim than my sister . . . ? 

_Perhaps we'll find him inside. In the meanwhile, we have work to do._

The only point of physical vulnerability was the jaws, and I stepped forward to attack them, hoping to distract the creature while the others came through the Gate. Flickers of light appeared above me, and I braced myself for the pain that standing nearly unprotected under Lavos' rain of fire would cause . . . but quite unexpectedly, a dome of energy formed itself above my head, deflecting the attack. As I twisted in order to put the full force of my body into another swing of my scythe, I caught a quick glimpse of Schala behind me, her mouth moving in a ceaseless chant. A spear poked past me and pried the plates of those shearing jaws apart, and I brought the main blade of my weapon around to chop at the vulnerable tissues inside, making Lavos squall. A Void spell battered at me, and I hoped that Vaie had remembered enough of what I'd told her about Lavos' attacks to have provided some protection against it for the Earthbound. 

The spear that was entangled with the creature's jaws was starting to bend, so I got my scythe into place to take the pressure off it. The faded-burgundy glop that served the spiky creature for blood was starting to run freely. _Not much longer now,_ I thought as a spell hammered past me and the smell of cooking meat turned somehow rancid and metallic wafted up. 

Spinning missiles fell, several of them getting past Schala's shield before she could alter the spells involved to compensate for the physical nature of the attack. Unfortunately, Melchior's potion hadn't left me so numb that I couldn't feel the one that drove itself into my shoulder, but I gritted my teeth and endured the pain without moving. The least motion might cause impaled muscle to shred itself against the rigid intrusion, and that was the last thing I needed. 

A flickering flash, and one of Vaie's throwing weapons shot past me, radiating streamers of golden light that suggested a magical charge. I sidestepped as best I could without moving my shoulder or letting Lavos' jaws clamp shut. 

The explosion spattered my forearm, leg, and one side of my cape with burgundy gore and blew my weapon from its position so hard that I not only tore that shoulder muscle anyway, but almost impaled myself on the backswing. However, it did far more damage to Lavos than it did to me. The lowest part of the jaw twitched feebly, no longer able to close, as the giant, alien creature emitted another high-pitched scream. The upper jaw sections flexed, convulsively, one last time, and then sagged as the muscles supporting them began to come apart. I had to dodge quickly as one of them fell off and nearly crushed my foot. Gore puddled on the shifting blueness under my feet for a few moments, then began to disappear as it was—as far as I could tell—absorbed. 

I frowned as I felt liquid trickle down into the cuff of my glove. My cleansing spells were lifting the burgundy alien gore away, but my shoulder wound was still bleeding. Quickly, I dismissed my scythe so that I could reach over with my other hand and apply some pressure, my fingers spread around the intruding spike. 

"We will need to pull that out before you can be healed," Schala said, almost in my ear, proving that I'd been more distracted than I should have allowed, since I hadn't noticed her approaching. 

"Go ahead," I said, and lifted my hand away again. I braced myself against pain as she gripped the spike with both hands and began to pull. 

The trickle of blood flowing down my arm became a stream as the spike came loose, but it only last a moment or two before Schala flung the offending object aside and uncorked a bottle of elixir. I relaxed slowly as the enchanted liquid flowed into the wound and the abused tissues tingled warmly as they knit themselves back together. A few moments later, I was left with nothing more than a red mark and a faint ache to remind me of what had happened. I flexed the arm cautiously, and nodded in satisfaction when the pain didn't get any worse. 

By that time, the last remnants of Lavos' jaws had melted away, leaving us with a clear path into the shell. From the interior came a faint, ugly greenish glow that I knew from experience would be bright enough for us to avoid tripping over anything inside. 

"There should be a drop of about ten feet," I warned the others. 

Vaie's beak parted in a grin. "Let's have a look, then," the gargoyle said, and walked straight through the jaws. She fluttered down, and a few moments later, called, "There's nothing here!" up from below. 

"Let's go," I said, and gestured to Kaya to go through next. The Earthbound woman nodded and silently obeyed. Talletar, Ruan, Schala . . . A moment later, Marus and I were alone. 

"I take it that this was a mere preliminary," the king said. 

I nodded. "The original Lavos had three forms, each of them progressively stronger . . . or perhaps it just got more and more desperate as we penetrated deeper inside it. I don't know exactly what we're going to end up facing here, but I somehow doubt it will be any _easier_ to kill." 

"I do not like that idea at all." 

"It isn't as though we have much choice in the matter," I said. "Unfortunately, Belthasar has it within his power to dictate a great deal about our coming encounter—and I like that no more than you do." 

" . . . Janus." 

"Yes?" 

"If I do not survive . . . please protect Schala. As much as you can, and for as long as you can." 

"You know I would do that even if you didn't ask me to," I said. 

Marus smiled tiredly. "Yes, but it makes me feel better to hear you say it. I am . . . not certain I can fight two more times and survive. Force-charging the gargoyle's weapon took more out of me than I expected—I have never used such a spell before." 

"Investing an object does create a powerful attack, but it isn't efficient," I observed. "I would suggest that you stick to direct attacks from now on—they're both easier and less tiring. Besides, we still have . . ." 

"Yes, we do." Marus understood without my needing to finish the sentence. 

"Drink some ether when you get to the bottom, if you haven't already," I said, and to my surprise, the king laughed. 

"I would have expected you to have at least a few compunctions about ordering your father around even if doing the same to a king didn't disturb you, but it seems that I worried needlessly." 

I shrugged. "I'm not so easily distracted." Saying, _You aren't really my father,_ would have been true but foolish, especially since there were moments when the lines blurred for me as well. 

Marus snorted, but instead of making a true reply to my statement, he ducked through Lavos' jaws. After giving him a moment to get clear of his landing-spot, I followed. 

The rough, cavelike passageway below looked exactly as I remembered it. I slipped past the others to lead the way cautiously along it . . . and was surprised to find it making a sharp turn to the right that certainly hadn't been present in the previous Lavos. 

"Be on your guard," I warned the others. 

It turned out to be only a small kink in the passageway—intended to block our line of sight? Vaie stopped at the second corner and cautiously poked her head around it without my having to give an order. 

A mellow laugh came from the other side. "There's no point in hiding, Prince Janus. I know that you and your confederates are there." 

" _Prince_ Janus?" Talletar asked sharply. 

"That is none of your affair," Marus said. 

"You've been watching us all along, haven't you?" I asked the air. 

"Very astute: Yes, how could I not have been? You are inside me, after all." 

I pushed past the others and walked around that last corner. What I found on the other side was . . . uglier than I had thought it would be. 

I had expected that Belthasar would either have been so completely absorbed by Lavos that he was no longer recognizable, or putting on the appearance of being a separate being even though he no longer was. What I found, however, was something . . . disturbingly intermediate. 

The old man's face, arms, and upper torso still had a generally human contour, and he was even clothed, after a fashion, although his robe was straining at the seams over his chest. Further down, it was shredded, although fragments of fabric still clung, here and there, to the ropes of pale flesh that had sprouted from the floor to envelop the ex-Guru's lower body. There were striations visible on his neck and jaw that suggested that Lavos' substance had penetrated him even further under the skin. 

I scowled. The clumsy merging of forms was . . . aesthetically displeasing, true, but what business did I have worrying about someone else's appearance? That wasn't what I was here for. 

"The expression on your face is quite a study," Belthasar observed with a smile that struck me as vaguely grotesque, given its setting. "I would have thought that you, of all people, would understand what a man might be willing to do in order to obtain power." 

"And now that you have it, what do you plan to do with it?" I asked. 

A blink. " _Do_ with it?" 

"In the days when I sought power, I did so for a purpose," I explained as the others came around the corner to arrange themselves behind me. "Power is a means, not an end. What do you intend to do with yours?" 

"I . . . my purpose . . . " But then the expression on the old man's face firmed. "My purpose is to see to my own survival, and the evolution of my species." His voice had an odd note to it. "You weak, planet-bound creatures do not matter. Your struggles are futile and irrelevant, except inasmuch as they stimulate you to evolve, so that your genetic material is superior when the time for the harvest comes. And then I will bear it back to the others, that we may select the best elements from it and recreate ourselves, while my children feed on what remains of your world . . ." 

That was clearly Lavos speaking, not Belthasar, although I didn't know what, if anything, we could do with that information. The new Dream Devourer didn't have enough interest in us to enable me to trick it, and if I chose the classic ploy of attempting to appeal to whatever might be left of Belthasar's better nature . . . well, I lacked the tools to be convincing in the role, to say the least. 

Schala stepped forward to stand beside me. "Listen to yourself," she said. "'The time for harvest'? Do you mean to destroy everything and everyone in the world? There was a time when you sought to make Zeal a better place to live! What happened to the man who wanted to help his people?" Not the strongest of pleas, but better than anything I could have come up with. A shame that it seemed to be having so little effect on Belthasar. 

"He died, Princess," the old man was saying. "He died when your father refused his help—refused even to give him a hearing—and died a second time when the king placed all his trust in a foreigner who has more than once demonstrated his willingness to betray the human race." 

"I gave you several hearings," Marus said. "The problem was that you would not take 'no' for an answer. Still, I never expected you to throw a childish temper tantrum like this over the matter." 

Belthasar gave his former king a cold glare. "You insisted on standing in the way of scientific advancement! What, other than rebelling, was I supposed to do?" 

Marus sighed. "The job of a king is to balance the best interests of all of those over whom he rules, Belthasar. I couldn't let you put the kingdom at risk just because you wanted to. I wish I knew what is broken in your mind that causes you to believe your own wishes are more important than anything else. Melchior was wondering about that, you know. He doesn't understand what could possibly have led you so far astray." 

"It's something innate in his mental makeup," I said before Belthasar could offer a reply. "He was the same in my world: unable or unwilling to care about the people he was endangering, so long as he had Lavos-bits to study." 

"The 'me' of your world was a pathetic creature," Belthasar replied with a snort. "Always content with scraps—" 

"And you thought that making yourself into an experiment was a better idea?" I asked dryly. "Odd choice for a researcher. You should know how difficult it is to study some phenomena from the inside." 

The old man grimaced. "It wasn't supposed to be this way, but certain people—" He glanced at Schala. "—were not very cooperative." 

Schala gave him a glare worthy of . . . me. "Was that what that was all about? You wanted me to . . . to . . ." She shuddered, but her eyes never left the old man's face. "Still, I should thank you, I suppose. Without you, Janus and I never would have met." 

"If I had realized that you were so thoroughly inclined to take your brother as a paramour, I would have found some version of him that was willing to collaborate with me, rather than trying to get you interested in that fool Dalton." 

" _Brother?_ " Talletar said. No one paid any attention to him, but Ruan and Vaie were giving me thoughtful looks. 

A ripple ran through Belthasar's flesh, and he added, conversationally, "I'm not going to be able to hold it back much longer, you know. Lavos, I mean. It sees you as dangerous invaders, now that you've penetrated its outer shell." As he spoke, I thought I saw a hint of some expression flicker across Kaya's face, but it was gone before I could get a good look. 

I gave Belthasar a fang-baring grin. "I didn't come here to talk with you, anyway. Let's finish this." 

I threw myself forward and bounced off a forcefield between myself and what was left of the former Guru. This was not going to be easy. 

"Attack him with everything you have!" I snapped. "We need to overload his protections!" 

Belthasar laughed. "And your fatal flaw seems to be underestimating your opponent. I have all the power of Lavos to draw upon, power that would be enough to keep the Floating Islands aloft indefinitely—do you honestly think you can overload _that_?" 

"We can try," I said grimly, and brought my scythe around. It was enspelled to cut through magical protections, so could it . . . ? After a fashion, it _did_ , I discovered, or at least I could slowly push the blade through the outer layer of Belthasar's protections . . . only to encounter another forcefield a few inches inside the first, just far enough away to avoid interference patterns. And there was probably another underneath that, and then yet another . . . 

_Think of something fast,_ I told myself, dodging the beams of concentrated shadow energy that suddenly flared around me. _We need to—_

More spells exploded against Belthasar's protections, but as far as I could tell they did no real damage. And if physical weapons couldn't penetrate, and spells weren't good enough, then we had no choice. 

I flung myself backward, rolled, and fetched up between Marus and Schala. "Use _that_ ," I snapped, catching the king's eye. 

Marus' hand went instantly to his pocket, but then he hesitated. "It seems a bit early to be showing our hand," he said, fending off another of Belthasar's spells with a complex hand gesture. 

"As he pointed out, we aren't likely to exhaust the power he has at his disposal," I said. "If we want to win, we need to throw everything we have into this before he runs us off our feet." 

A slow nod. "Very well. Get Talletar over here, if you can." 

I muttered a curse. The fire-mage was just about as far from the three of us as he could get without leaving the arena of battle altogether, and the air was thick with spells. It was going to be difficult to avoid overloading my passive defenses before I made it halfway to my destination. 

A light touch on my arm, a murmured spell . . . "Good luck," Schala murmured, and smiled at me. The defensive spell she had layered over my own appeared as a faint shimmer in the air around me, which would hopefully be enough to tell me when it fell apart. 

I wanted to say something, to return her gesture of affection, but there was no time. Instead, I flung myself forward and began dodging Belthasar's attacks. Weaving between them was like performing the steps of an intricate dance, or being the victim in one of Slash's combat lessons and trying to stay out of his grasp for as long as possible. I made it to Talletar before Schala's spell broke completely, although it was flickering dangerously. 

"The king wants you," I snapped at the fire-user, twisting as I did to block a beam of shadow energy with the blade of my scythe. 

"And you're going to escort me back over there?" came the snide reply. 

I shrugged. "Why not? The two of us together are a larger target, but in this case it might actually be better for him to hit me instead of you." 

A long stare, and a nod, then Talletar began to move tentatively in the direction of Marus and Schala. I positioned myself between him and Belthasar, blocking what attacks I could with my scythe and the powerful spells it bore, the others first with Schala's spell, then, after it collapsed, with my own body and passive protections. I was starting to feel distinctly charred around the edges by the time we were able to duck behind the barriers Schala had created to protect herself and Marus. 

Safe, I took a moment to knock back a tonic and see what the others were doing. Ruan and Kaya were poking away at Belthasar's barrier with their spears, and Ruan's Zeal-made weapon actually seemed to be getting through the first couple of layers of barriers. Belthasar's magic attacks didn't seem to be affecting either of them much—I suspected that, since the two had no magic of their own, Vaie had equipped them with spell-walls, which wouldn't let magic in or out. An Enlightened would quickly fry himself inside such a barrier unless he were very careful indeed, but it was a good choice for the Earthbound. Vaie herself was perched in a tiny space between the ceiling and what seemed to be the top of the uppermost layer of Belthasar's barrier, and appeared to be systematically attempting to grind her way through from this difficult-to-attack location. I wished her luck. 

I slipped leftward in order to place myself out of the direct line of fire between the mages and Belthasar, and began to hack at the old man's barriers myself, on the basis that the more distracted he was, the better. The mages had finished conferring and were arranging themselves in a triangular formation with Marus at the point. Without my own magic, I couldn't sense the spell they were building coming together, but I could tell when the purely verbal outer form began to rise to a crescendo. 

"Cover your eyes!" I warned the two Earthbound, and fell back, disengaging so that I could bring a fold of my cloak up in front of my face. 

The light from the spell was so bright that it almost blinded me despite my precautions—and through closed eyelids, at that! When I opened my eyes again, red afterimages danced across the scene in front of me. 

I lunged at Belthasar, bringing my scythe around, and this time, the blade slammed home, penetrating pale alien flesh and eliciting a trickle of dark gore. I frowned. A trickle? Blood should have been gushing out around the long, curved blade. I pulled it loose, and the blood flow increased for a moment . . . and then dried up as the wound began to close. 

Rapid healing. Well, all that meant was that we were gong to have to hit him hard enough and in quick enough succession that we would overload that, too. I swung my scythe as though I were cutting hay rather than flesh, chopping away a Lavos-chunk the size of my head . . . and then swore violently as a lightning bolt slammed into my chest and threw me backwards into the wall. The impact made my fangs cut into my lower lip, and I wiped a trickle of blood off my chin as I forced myself to my feet again. 

Before I could plunge back into the battle, Kaya was flung across the room and slammed into me, flattening me against the wall again. I was trying to push her off and rapidly exhausting my stock of curses when I felt the wall ripple against my back. Knowing that something was coming, I tried to dodge, but the body of the Earthbound woman pinned me in place just an instant too long. 

The alien flesh was ice cold as it erupted into my abdomen. I could feel it writhing inside me, slowly pushing itself up along my spine, and I realized that this was no simple impalement—Lavos was trying to take me over. The thought was enough to make my mind descend into a clarity colder than the invading touch: how _dare_ it attempt such a thing? 

Moving with unemotional precision, I thrust Kaya away. Initially, she seemed stunned, but then she scrambled to her knees . . . and I had better things to do than watch her in any case. Unburdened, I was able to dismiss my scythe, brace both arms and both legs against the wall, and tear my body off the invading tentacle. 

Without Melchior's numbing potion in my veins, I doubt I could have done it, no matter how strong or stubborn my will. Tendrils like wire ripped through my abdomen, slicing organs to shreds. In the sixth century, it would have been a slow, incapacitating death wound. Here . . . with absolute concentration, I opened one vial of elixir after another and gulped them down until I felt the pain ease a little. My flesh was no doubt still riddled with filth that would cause infection to flare up in a day or two, but for now, I could fight, and if I survived, a good healer would be able to fix things. 

I heaved myself to my feet, surreptitiously testing damaged muscles and finding them workable, if not intact. Fortunately, Belthasar was no longer flinging massive numbers of spells around—instead, he seemed to be frantically attempting to rebuild his barriers . . . and trying to get Vaie away from him. The gargoyle was clinging grimly to the top of his multilayered shell and doing her best to disrupt new layers of protection as the ex-Guru put them into place, but the tentacles lashing at her from the ceiling were making her job difficult too. Kaya had risen to her feet and was leaning on her spear, obviously exhausted. Ruan was over by the mages, frowning and occasionally poking at the floor with his spear, while Marus, arms outstretched, sustained a barrier around them, and Schala bent over the arm of a white-faced Talletar. It was this last quartet over to whom I limped. 

"You truly are stubborn, aren't you?" The sound of Belthasar's voice made me spin to face him before I had quite reached the shelter of the mages' shields. 

I bared my fangs at him. "The Sea of Dreams will freeze over before I surrender to the likes of you, and running away would only prolong the inevitable. That doesn't leave me with many choices, does it?" 

A soft chuckle. "I suppose not. Time for you to die, then. I can get to work on the others once you're out of the picture." 

Energy crackled through the room, lightning bolts crisscrossing the space around me . . . but they weren't aimed at me, or at least not at first. Instead, Belthasar was battering away at the shields that protected Marus and Schala. I could see Marus' mouth and hands moving as he reinforced them, but even a mage of his caliber couldn't stand alone against the full power of Lavos. I could see corruption starting in the pattern of the protective spells as the lightning momentarily illuminated their structure with each strike, so I was ready when they began to come apart, and threw myself in front of the gap, hoping that my own passive protections would buy Marus enough time to rebuild the shields. 

Ten seconds, twenty . . . The light show around me was spectacular, and I knew I couldn't handle it for long. Thirty seconds . . . and the spells that enwrapped and defended me collapsed at last, the last flickers of a lightning spell leaving my arms striped with the red of shallow burns. Nor had I time to do more than grit my teeth before the next spell slammed into me, followed by another and another. _Dying because Belthasar read me clearly enough this one time to set me up—how ironic._

I think I must have lost consciousness for a moment, but it didn't last long enough to keep me from being aware that the final bolt had flung me backward to smash into Talletar, knocking him onto the tip of a Lavos-tentacle that stuck out from the wall. His scream reverberated in my ears as I lay there, vision blurred, with the scent of charred leather filling my nostrils. My heels throbbed dully despite Melchior's drug, and I suspect that some of the lightning had grounded out through my legs, burning holes in my boots. And there was something more than that wrong, too, because my limbs were moving in little involuntary jerks. 

"Janus!" Schala knelt down beside me, while Ruan loomed over her, fending off tentacles, and Marus, beside him, ceaselessly recited the spells that would defend us from magic. 

I licked my lips. "Get out," I said, the words barely more than a whisper. "Take the others with you if you can, and the Sun Stone as well. I wrote out the spells for interdimensional transit and left the information in my room at the palace—you might be able to save a few people that way. There's nothing more I can do. I'm sorry." And I raised a trembling hand to touch her face. "Don't cry. That's the last thing I wanted to make you do." 

She wiped away her tears with the back of her hand. "I refuse to listen to this." And she spoke a shielding spell—one that I'd never heard before, but which I muzzily deduced would form a hemisphere around the three of us which would let nothing but air in or out. Ruan tapped at the force-wall of the forming shield with the butt of his spear, grunted, and sat down on the ground to rest, ignoring Schala and I, while Marus sighed and knelt beside his daughter. 

"Don't waste your time and energy on me," I whispered . . . but I wasn't used to begging, and it didn't come out very well. Nevertheless, I persisted: "Save yourselves, please. Let me know I accomplished at least that much." 

"I find myself in agreement with my daughter," Marus said. "I will not listen to this." He pulled a vial of concentrated tonic from his pocket. "Schala, help him sit up." 

"I don't need help," I snapped, and somehow, despite my spasms, levered myself up onto one elbow. Marus unstoppered the tonic and held it to my lips—fortunately, because the fine motor control required would have been beyond me—and I obediently drank, but while the pain of the burns abated, I was still twitching uncontrollably. 

Schala sat back on her heels and frowned, murmuring a diagnostic spell. "Janus, I think I will have to take these off you," she said at last, touching one of the black metal bands I'd had Melchior make for me. "The lightning spells seem to have damaged them, and the magics they contain are coming apart." 

I smiled thinly. "Why not? I'm useless either way, now." 

"Stop that," Marus commanded. "Do you always dissolve into self-pity when you can no longer see a way out of your situation? I had thought better of you." 

"Perhaps I have finally reached the limits of my strength," I said. 

Schala shook her head. "I doubt that." 

One by one, the black bands were opened and fell away. I would have liked to sigh with relief as the pain that had haunted me, waking and sleeping, for the past several days fell away, but Ruan would hear . . . _and why do I still care about that?_ But it's hard to dismiss the habits of a lifetime. 

"You're only prolonging the inevitable, you know," came Belthasar's voice from outside our bubble, sounding like it was underwater—apparently sound could penetrate it as well, albeit poorly. 

"If I had my magic, I'd finish that blowhard in under a minute," I grumbled. 

Schala bowed her head. "And so you may have doomed the world just to save me." 

Somehow, I managed to force myself into a sitting position and wrap leaden arms around her. "Perhaps I'm mad, but I consider that to be an equitable exchange." 

"You _are_ mad," she agreed, but I think the corners of her mouth also twitched upward. "I wish . . ." 

"You need to be careful about wishes," I said. "It was a wish that—" 

I froze. It was magic channeled through my sister's wish for my future, embedded in Dreamstone, that had transformed me from a human child into a . . . creature of singular species, even though neither my sister nor myself would have had any idea of how to do such a thing. In which case, it might be possible that . . . 

Slowly, my hand slid down to my side, where the familiar steel crescent still hung, and popped the amulet loose from its setting. 

"You have an idea," Marus stated. 

"It would be more accurate to say that I'm grasping at straws," I replied. "Schala, I'll need your help for this." 

"Tell me what to do." 

I placed the amulet in her hand. "Touch this to the damned collar and channel your power through it while willing Flea's little gift to open and free me." 

"Only that?" 

I nodded. "If we're lucky, the dream creatures will understand how to do what we couldn't. If not . . ." 

"At least we will have tried," Schala filled in. "But . . . dream creatures?" 

"Didn't Melchior pursue that line of research here?" I asked. 

"Apparently not." A hesitation. "Are you ready?" 

"If I had thought of this soon enough, I would have been ready days ago," I said. "Do it." 

She pressed her hand against my throat, and I heard the soft _click_ as amulet touched collar. Then she took a deep breath and closed her eyes, frowning with concentration. 

At first, nothing seemed to happen, and I clenched my hands into fists, telling myself not to despair. Then . . . a soft noise which I doubt anyone else's ears could have picked up, like the fall of a single grain of sand. And then another and another, until the collar had crumbled away. 

_. . . can't do anything more,_ a tiny voice seemed to say from somewhere nearby. _Good luck._

Strength flooded back to my limbs as Schala lifted the amulet away, and I dusted off the skin of my throat and sat up. There was one more vial of elixir concealed in my pockets, and as I gulped it down, the sound of the Black Wind rose to a hollow roar around me. Schala placed the amulet in the palm of my hand, and I absently snapped it back into its setting before turning to her. 

"Can you purge what's left of Melchior's painkilling potion from my body?" I asked . . . and only then did I notice she was crying. "Schala . . ." 

"I am . . . merely relieved that you will be well," she said softly, but I gathered her into my arms anyway, and held her for a few moments snatched out of time. 

Marus was watching us, I noted, meeting the king's eyes over Schala's head. 

"And I am relieved that my daughter has found someone who loves her so deeply," Marus said. "Binding someone of your strength so solidly to the throne bodes well for Zeal's future." 

"We still need to determine whether or not Zeal will _have_ a future," I pointed out as I reluctantly let Schala go. "I do have a plan of sorts, but . . . wait. You—Ruan. Come over here. I don't want to be overheard." I beckoned to the Earthbound, and he hitched himself across the blue moire that served for flooring here until he was quite close to us. 

"We are going to have to concentrate our attacks on a single point in order to overcome Lavos' regeneration ability," I said softly. "We won't have more than one chance: not only are we already worn down, but we have been extraordinarily lucky up to this point." 

"So what do we aim for, O Fearless Leader?" Ruan asked with a smirk. 

I gave him a cold look. "I'd thrash you for that, but right now neither of us can afford to waste the energy. We aim for Belthasar's head. He's the driving intelligence behind this thing. Without his brain to run the show, this creature will revert to being the rather stupid Lavos I fought in my own world. Now, here's what we're going to do . . ." 

I laid out the plan slowly and deliberately—we were all tired and battered, and I didn't want anyone making any mistakes. The thunder of the Black Wind was a constant reminder of what would happen if this last, desperate attempt at saving this world failed. Despite that, I was almost glad to once more be able to hear the herald of disaster. 

"Questions?" I said at the end, and was rewarded by a trio of headshakes and an increasingly familiar half-smile from Marus. "All right, then. We'll start as soon as I've restored my protective spells." Recreating the protections that the lightning had burned away was a finicky process, but I had a feeling that I was going to need them. In any case, the others, Ruan especially, seemed to be glad of the rest. Well, the young Earthbound _had_ been putting a lot more effort into dodging than I had. He hadn't been seriously wounded yet, whereas I'd been half-killed three times on this little expedition. 

However, I wasn't going to permit a fourth. 

It might have been fifteen minutes before I stood up and nodded to the others, who rose to their feet as well. Schala murmured a word, and the bubble of safety that had surrounded us while we rested winked out. 

I didn't much like what I saw. 

Talletar had been partially enveloped by pale Lavos- flesh, like Belthasar. That was . . . potentially very bad. Kaya had somehow remained free, but was too busy fending off tentacles with her spear to mount a counterattack. Vaie . . . It took me a moment to even _find_ the gargoyle, because she was no longer perched on top of Belthasar's protections— mostly because the ceiling there had descended until there was no longer space for her. I eventually spotted her hovering on the far side of the ex-Guru, dodging the fleshy tentacles that were lazily attempting to impale her while she flung her throwing weapons at the enemy's outermost shell, over and over again. 

The part I liked least was that Belthasar had rebuilt his defenses, so that layer upon layer of lightning-imbued barriers separated us. I had been expecting him to get one or two layers up at most, and while they wouldn't interfere in my plan directly, I was worried that I had been underestimating him, which could end up being deadly. 

Well, first things first . . . but before I could get down to cutting the heads off the serpent, Belthasar spoke up again. 

"So you did manage to find a way to take that collar off after all . . . coming in here with it still on was all part of your master plan, no doubt. Rather hard on your allies, however." The old man smiled benignly. I gave him a disgusted look, then gestured to the others and pulled out my scythe. 

Schala dropped back and cast a protection of moderate strength around herself and her father, while Ruan moved over to my left. I held up two fingers, and we lunged forward in unison as Marus began casting attack spells directly at Belthasar as a distraction. 

Ruan spun his spear in a broad gesture, using the spells I'd cast on his weapon to cut through the double-layered barrier between us and Talletar. I sheared through the Lavos- flesh imprisoning the fire-mage with my scythe, knowing that it was quite possible I would also end up amputating his feet, but he was better off dead than absorbed by a world-killing monster. However, the blood that flowed out was too dark to be human. Schala moved forward to begin the tedious and ugly task of freeing the unfortunate mage from the remains of the severed tentacles, while Ruan and I turned to face Belthasar. The old man actually looked a bit frightened, and was lashing back at Marus with everything he had. A dim and flickering radiance was leaking from between the king's fingers, suggesting that he had brought the remains of the Sun Stone's energy into play. 

Belthasar didn't seem to have noticed the weakness in the design of his shielding yet, one which I had become aware of immediately when I'd regained the ability to sense its structure, and which probably wouldn't have been obvious to anyone else. After all, who but a shadow-element would have noticed that a protective spell was weak to shadow energy? 

I gestured to Ruan to move away from me, and flung a Dark Bomb spell, taking out about three layers of the ex-Guru's protections. I threw another immediately. It would take nearly a dozen of them to get through to the . . . creature . . . at the center, and Belthasar naturally wasn't stupid enough to take my spells lying down. Lasers criss-crossed, and I had to pause and fling up a shield of my own, although I hadn't been the primary target. 

Belthasar swore aloud as a different shield, of Schala's making, came up around herself and Talletar, blocking his attack. Marus had invoked one around Ruan as well, although it hadn't been strictly necessary. 

"Trying to distract me that way won't work," I told him, and was gratified to see what might have been the vaguest hint of fear cross Belthasar's face. I flung a couple of additional Dark Bomb spells while he was distracted, and was delighted to see that some sort of resonance taking place between the remains of the breached barrier layers was causing the undamaged parts of them to decay, and riddling re-established areas with holes. 

This time, when the attack spells came, they were aimed at me. I blocked and dodged while Ruan stepped forward into the breach I had created and battered at the next layer of shielding. How many years had it been, I wondered idly as lightning flailed impotently at me, since I had actually used this element-absorbing barrier spell? It had been a long time since I'd last had a real fight with another mage . . . Might it even have been all the way back at the beginning of things, when Crono and his friends had attacked me in my own keep? That seemed like ancient history to me now. 

Ruan dodged and rolled back out of the way as Belthasar lashed out at him, and I went on the attack again. I saw the old man grimace, and suspected he'd just realized that the Earthbound and I were deliberately keeping just far enough apart to prevent him from being able to see us both at the same time, which made it much more difficult for him to hit us both with the same spell. It wasn't a ploy that could have worked when we'd first entered the room—we couldn't have spread out fast enough— but now . . . 

Three more Dark Bombs, and Belthasar cursed horribly as the resonance the shadow spells were creating in his layered barrier grew worse, leaving even the layers I hadn't touched yet honeycombed with spreading holes. I made a sweeping gesture as I dropped my shielding spells, cueing Marus to take over my defense—the elemental barrier was a complex spell, and I couldn't hold it in my mind and cast Dark Matter as well. My supreme attack demanded absolute attention to what I was doing as I built it up. 

In the instant before I released the first casting, I saw Belthasar's eyes widen in surprise and disbelief—but then he had probably never seen a shadow spell of such power before. I hadn't cast anything more complex than Dark Bomb since coming to this world—either I'd been cut off from my powers or my opponents had been magic-resistant . . . or of such magnitude that deploying a truly powerful spell against them would have been like using my scythe to swat flies. 

Lavos—not Belthasar—howled as the first spell struck home, pulping the body of the composite creature inside the barrier . . . but it wasn't its torso that I'd wanted to destroy. The second spell sent bits of tentacle flying and completely destroyed the layered shielding, and then Ruan bounded in, swinging his spear like an axe to shear through what was left of Belthasar's neck. He grabbed the old man's head by the hair and threw it up into the air, and I hit it with another spell when it reached the top of its arc, a tightly-targeted bi-elemental spell I'd developed during the years when I'd been working on the Time Egg with Lucca. It turned the head into a spreading cloud of dust. 

Another thundering howl, and the floor began to ripple, ridges drawing inward toward a point almost directly in front of me. Then two objects popped out of the floor, and I smiled thinly, for the battle was now back on a familiar basis. 

The two little floating . . . things . . . looked a bit forlorn without the vaguely humanoid creature that I remembered them flanking, but I knew that one of them was the true brain of Lavos. Quickly, I flung a Dark Bomb, and established that the decoy was the one on my left. I pointed to it, and Ruan nodded. 

The young Earthbound leaped into the air in a showy move that brought his entire weight down on the spear he bore. He struck with such force that the Lavos-bit he was attacking split in half when it hit the floor. I saw all of this out of the corner of my eye while I peppered the other Lavos-bit with targeted spells. It was unfortunate that the spell I had used on Belthasar's head couldn't be used on an opponent that was dodging or otherwise fighting back, or I would have been able to end the fight within seconds. 

Spell after spell after spell . . . There are few people who know enough to appreciate how difficult maintaining such a barrage really is. The first half-dozen castings aren't all that hard, but after a while it becomes difficult to keep the words flowing smoothly and the gestures precise. A slip of the tongue or a hand set to trembling by spending too long in an awkward position can cause a spell to fizzle out—or, even worse, misfire and turn on the caster. I was experienced enough to know that cycling through three or four different incantations helps, but even so, I was almost grateful when the other Lavos-bit flickered back into existence and gave me an excuse to take a brief rest, shake my arms out, and look around while Ruan leapt into action again. 

Marus had been casting a barrage as well, and was now taking a break. Vaie was standing beside Schala with one wing outstretched, having a torn membrane treated. Kaya had gone into action with Ruan, but her attacks were . . . almost perfunctory. She also appeared to be limping, although I couldn't see any sign that one of the tentacles Belthasar had been throwing out had pierced her foot. I shrugged and filed it away as a bizarre detail just as Ruan took the magic-proof Lavos-bit out again. 

Even as I chanted my way through a second barrage, I was braced for something to go wrong, but to my considerable surprise, it never did. I cast one last Dark Matter, and Lavos let loose one more time with that eerie roaring scream . . . and died. 

Breathing hard, I absently wiped sweat from my forehead with the back of one hand . . . and then had a sudden horrible thought. _Where is the Frozen Flame?_ Lavos' Dream . . . We couldn't leave it here—it might be able to revive the creature outright, or do any one of a hundred kinds of lesser mischief. The Black Wind hadn't ebbed with Lavos' death, so there was still a danger. 

I took a deep breath and closed my eyes, examining the area with my subtler senses while the Black Wind howled around me. There had to be something . . . but my inner eye kept drifting back to the Sun Stone. Even in its near-exhausted state, the ancient artefact that had powered Zeal's civilization for so long radiated intense power. 

Irritably, I kicked at a scrap of tentacle, and was just about to ask Marus to step outside into the passageway that led back to the jaws when the room flickered around me. I spun, scanning shadows for I knew not what, but was interrupted by another flicker . . . and then the room, and everything in it, vanished, leaving me hanging alone in the dark for an instant before crimson light flared. 

I glared with loathing at the all-too-familiar shape of the Frozen Flame. "And now come the temptations, I suppose," I grumbled at it. 

_And now comes the truth,_ came the whisper of not-words inside my brain. _This is what your future now holds . . ._

I fought it, of course, but I was tired and battered and simply couldn't bring as much concentration to bear as I might have at my best. And so the room flickered out despite my will, and placed me in . . . 

. . . the throne room of Zeal's royal palace. I was standing on the dais to the left of the throne, on which Marus was seated, and the rest of the room was incredibly crowded. There had to be hundreds of people crammed in there, but there was still an open aisle running from the doors to the step below the king. Oh, well, at least I hadn't undergone any sudden physical transformations this time: a quick check found my fangs still in place, although I was wearing the court outerrobe that had been made for me as Schala's consort. 

The doors opened, and two people began advancing, side by side, up that aisle of free space. Schala and Ruan. Both of them wearing robes, and the coronet of flowers banding her brow suggested . . . 

"I've seen enough," I said wearily. "Do you really think it matters? Marrying him would be a sound political decision, and far less problematic for her than accepting me would be. Why do you always assume this is about my happiness?" 

The Flame had been right in front of me when this farce had begun, and with a few words and a scything motion of my hand, I sent a bolt of shadow energy flying straight at it. There was a shrill crystalline noise that almost sounded like a scream, and the illusion that had surrounded me winked out to reveal the familiar chamber inside Lavos, and the Frozen Flame lying on the floor some five feet from me, its inner glow flickering fitfully. 

I took off my cape, wrapped the huge Dreamstone securely in it, cast a spell on the bundle, and tucked it under my arm, relaxing just a hair as that finally caused the Black Wind to die down. I wasn't about to half-kill myself—again—attempting the desperation tactic for destroying it that I'd used in my own world. Given a few days to work on it, and all the remaining resources of Zeal, I was sure that Melchior could figure out a way to get past its defenses. In the meanwhile, it could waste its time staring at the sense-blocking spell that I'd just cast on the package. 

"We should try to get out of here before the place starts to come apart around us," I said, and noticed that everyone was staring at me. Well, in Ruan's case it was more like glaring. "What?" 

"Thought you were trying to kill me," the Earthbound growled. 

"Whatever you were doing did look . . . a bit strange," Schala added tentatively. "First you were talking to thin air, and then you cast a spell at nothing and the Flame suddenly fell out . . ." 

"He cast a spell at my _head_ ," Ruan snapped. 

I considered his position, my original one, that of the Flame . . . "It was inadvertent," I said—as close as I was willing to come to apologizing to him. "You were not my target." 

A sudden . . . well, not an earth tremor, I suppose. A Lavos-tremor? In any case, the room shook for a moment, and I had to take a quick step backward to avoid being hit on the nose by a fist-sized chunk of . . . something . . . that fell from the ceiling. And the Black Wind was rising again, although not to anything like its prior levels: _we_ might be in danger, but the world wasn't. 

"We need to get out." I repeated my earlier warning and reinforced it with a raking glare. Vaie went first, then Talletar—propelled by a push from Marus—and Schala. Then Ruan. Marus and I went side-by-side, leaving Kaya to bring up the rear. 

"We need a plan to deal with the zombies if we are going to take the same path to leave as we did to enter," the king said. "I suggest—" 

I didn't think anything of the soft cough at first . . . not until I saw, out of the corner of my eye, the spreading stain on the front of his robe. I was spinning to face the attacker with my scythe in my hands before I even realized who had to be responsible. 

Kaya glared at me defiantly as the sharpened outer edge of the curved blade brushed her throat, drawing a single drop of blood. 

"Why?" I asked. 

"Because he asked me to." 

_He?_ "Belthasar?" 

"Yes." 

"What was he to you?" I prodded. 

"The father of my children." The Earthbound woman smiled thinly. "This is only the beginning of the revenge he planned. I hope you enjoy it." 

I snarled and made a pushing, twisting motion with the scythe, mangling her throat as Lavos shuddered again. She died with that smile still on her face.


	8. VIII. Prisoners of Fate

The entire exchange, dual murder and all, had taken only seconds, and I returned my scythe to its pocket of nothing and caught Marus in my arms as both bodies began to fall. Shifting, I pulled the spear from his heart and flung it back down the passageway. Lavos rumbled as it clattered to the ground, and I had the unpleasant feeling that the damnable creature was laughing. Since she had hit him in the heart and not the brain, there was still a chance . . . 

Schala was at my side before I could call for her, chanting a spell. I gritted my teeth as Lavos shuddered around us. There was no time, and yet if we didn't do this _now_ , we would have no chance at all of saving Marus. 

Schala finished her spell, but then got a puzzled look on her face and tore her father's shirt open. At first, the wound where the tip of the spear had exited his chest did seem to be closing . . . but then the trend reversed itself, and it gaped open again. Grimly, Schala cast another spell, but the cycle only repeated itself. Tears began to run down her face. 

"I . . . I can't . . . it is poisoned somehow. Oh, Janus . . ." 

My mind was scrambling, fitting spell-fragments together— _thus_ and _thus_ and _so_ , yes, it just might work . . . I chanted a makeshift formula, and Marus' body was engulfed in a sort of purplish haze which, with any luck, represented a cessation of time for what was within. 

"It might preserve him until we can get him to Melchior," I said. "At the moment, that would seem to be his best chance." Another rumble, and chunks of Lavos fell from the ceiling, one of them narrowly missing my head. "Come. We cannot stay here." 

I had to speak a strengthening spell in order to lift Marus' body and carry it along the passageway. To my surprise, Ruan had ducked back as well, taking up rear-guard duties and placing Schala and I and Marus' body in the middle of our little group along with Talletar. Kaya's body was left where it fell, although Ruan did go to it momentarily and take something from it. When he caught up to us again, I saw a broken leather thong twining through the fingers of his left hand. 

Outside Lavos' jaws, it was black as night, and even the phosphorescence inside was flickering fitfully. Had the corpse of the alien monster already fallen into the Darkness Beyond Time? The only way to tell for certain would be to attempt to leave. Or just perhaps . . . 

I positioned myself just below the drop from the open mouth, and closed my eyes, trying to sense the pattern of energies around me in greater detail. There—surely that was it! 

I'd never actually used this spell before either, but at least I wasn't cobbling it together on the spot, so I was able to speak the words with confidence. I hoped, as the Gate irised open, that this would be the last thing I would have to cast for a while. I was starting to get very tired. 

Vaie ducked through the Gate before I could say anything, and once again I was grateful for the gargoyle sergeant's courage. I nodded to Talletar, and he followed without protest—and what, I wondered, had been responsible for that sudden change in his behaviour? Had he been stunned by my aura, perhaps? 

Schala went next, leaving me alone with Ruan. 

"Go," the young Earthbound said. 

I shook my head. "It will close when I pass through." Not quite true, but he would have had only seconds to follow me, which meant that he might well have landed on top of me. 

Ruan frowned, but he went through without any further protest. 

I initially intended to give him a count of ten to get clear of his landing spot, but on _seven_ , Lavos' inner phosphorescence flickered one last time, then failed. I threw myself forward even as I felt space distorting around me—the dead creature was being dragged off into the Darkness Beyond Time, and I didn't intend to go with it. 

It was the roughest Gate transit I had ever experienced—rather like flying through the middle of a thunderstorm without protections to absorb the lightning and take the bite out of the sleet and the icy rain. I was buffeted from side to side as waves of energy stung my skin, and then finally flung out nearly five feet above the ground, exhausted, half-witless, and unable to catch myself with my flight ability before slamming down on solid stone. Just then, I envied Marus for being dead and in stasis: _he_ couldn't suffer bruises or broken bones. 

I muttered one more word, formally letting the Gate go, and allowed myself just to lie there while Ruan and Vaie lifted the king's body off me. Some careful tests led me to the conclusion that the knifing pain in my side came from a set of fresh cracks in my much-abused ribcage, which in turn suggested that not moving might be the best thing I could do for myself. It _sounded_ like a good idea, anyway. 

"Janus . . ." Schala knelt beside me, offering an uncapped vial filled with elixir that sparkled with slight carbonation. I accepted it with a hand that shook only slightly, and poured the contents down my throat. Once the sharp pain in my side had faded to a dull ache, I forced myself to sit up, even though it was very nearly the last thing I wanted to do. 

The rectangular stone platform I had created at this universe's End of Time appeared largely unchanged, except for being rather more cluttered than I had ever seen it before. I hadn't expected it would ever need to hold more than two or three people. Well, that was just going to have to be the case for a little while longer: I didn't have the strength, just then, to drill another Gate or to make the necessary five trips to carry everyone else out. 

_And just where would we go?_ I thought belatedly, remembering Kaya's last words. If Belthasar had planned a revenge, I had no doubt that one of the first steps had involved rendering the Royal Palace unsafe for us, and quite possibly Algetty as well, since he seemed to have closer contacts among the Earthbound than I had ever dreamed. 

Somehow, I managed to heave myself up into a more dignified position, perched on the low wall between the two halves of the platform. Pain of purely psychological origin knifed through my head as I murmured the words of Gaspar's time- viewing spell. I turned my gaze on the palace first, but I didn't need to keep watching for long in order to tell that the place was under martial law. There were knots of constructs stationed in the corridors, each with a human mage at its center. I didn't like the level of prior planning that suggested. 

Algetty . . . was in a panic, but I couldn't tell over what. A lot of people were running to and fro, children were hiding in their home caves with frightened expressions on their faces, and I couldn't seem to spot the old headman anywhere. 

I canceled the spell and looked around at the others. The elixir had healed all our various bruises and scrapes, and various self-cleaning spells were in the process of removing the last of the sweat, dirt, and dried blood from our clothing, but everyone looked dead tired. We needed rest before plunging back in to see what kind of disaster had overtaken the real world. The End of Time was safe enough, but not very comfortable, which meant that Talletar was going to act like an idiot, and Schala, although I knew she would valiantly try to make herself comfortable on the hard stone floor, wasn't likely to get much rest. 

_Just one more effort,_ I told myself, and closed my eyes. 

After a moment, I heard a startled yelp, and opened them again. The door I had envisioned had appeared on the far side of the fountain, and Ruan was staring at it as though it were a poisonous snake. 

"Open it," I said irritably. 

Ruan did so, and looked through it into the room beyond. Then he leaned over to one side and examined the far side of the door, which, from that point of view, appeared to open on nothing. The Earthbound peered through the opening again, then turned to face me. 

"Don't do things like that," he said. "I take it that we're going to rest?" 

I nodded. "We're all exhausted. The palace and Algetty are both in a shambles, and I want us to be fresh before we try to figure out what's going on. If Belthasar really did plan some sort of revenge, it's likely to be complex and multi-layered, and I don't want to miss any of the subtleties." 

I forced myself to my feet and picked up Marus' body. Talletar scowled. 

"I refuse to sleep in the same room as a corpse, no matter whose it is." 

Patience exhausted, I bared my teeth at him. "Don't worry, I've provided special accommodations for his Majesty. Don't tempt me to put you in them instead." 

I was going to have to flatten Talletar someday soon. Breaking people wasn't something that I enjoyed, but I didn't have time to deal with the mage's childish outbursts, especially since I had a feeling that things were going to get even more difficult from this point on. 

The stone-walled room I had created contained six beds with unadorned foam mattresses, and another door in the far wall to which I carried the body. The room on the other side of that was tiny, containing nothing but a niche dug into the back wall at waist height—a niche sized to accommodate a corpse. I laid Marus there, then, after a moment's thought, placed my other burden, the cape-wrapped Frozen Flame, on the floor. 

Back in the dormitory, I pulled that door shut, then laid my hand on the handle and let my power seep into it until I was satisfied that only I would be able to open it. Once that was done, I found the nearest vacant bed and let myself relax a trifle, curling up on my side. 

I was almost asleep when I felt the surface of the mattress shift, and opened my eyes to find Schala stretching out beside me. I was too tired for conversation, but I wrapped one arm around her as she buried her head under my chin. 

I must have fallen asleep with a smile on my face, because it was still there when I woke up. 

* * *

I was very nearly the last to wake—although I can normally function on very little sleep, I had used myself hard for the past few days. The first thing I saw as I opened my eyes was Schala smiling back at me, and I realized belatedly that the reason I had been able to feel the faintest hint of someone tugging at my hair was that she was playing with it. 

The first thing I _heard_ as I woke was Talletar snoring, but you can't have everything. 

"I was starting to wonder if you would ever wake up," Schala said. "Ruan is trying to do something about breakfast, I believe." And after that explanation, I was treated to an unexpected, but very sweet, good morning kiss. 

"We should get up," I said, but it was all I could do not to sigh with regret. 

Schala grimaced. "I suppose so. After all, we might end up with an audience at any time." 

"Putting all the beds in one room may have been a bit short-sighted on my part," I admitted, and Schala giggled. Her hand moved to cup my face, but I captured her wrist instead and planted a kiss on her palm. "And now we really _do_ need to get up, before I do something I shouldn't," I said. 

"Mmh. I hope this is all over soon. Then perhaps we will be able to take some time for ourselves." 

"I hope so," I said . . . but at the same time I couldn't help but remember the Frozen Flame's little prophecy regarding the future. 

_Am I destined to lose you after all?_

Outside in the fountain room, Ruan and Vaie were conversing quietly. The gargoyle was perched on the edge of an oversized flowerpot containing a large . . . Well, I wasn't really sure what it was. It had the general form of a fruiting tree, but the "leaves" were pale grey rather than green, and unusually fleshy. A fungus? Regardless, it certainly hadn't been there before. 

Ruan looked up and must have noticed us for the first time, because he said, "I don't know how you managed to create an entire room out of nothing, especially not when you were so tired you were just about falling over. I had a hard time just making one potted cave apple plant." 

"High-level magic trains one's will and concentration," I said with a shrug. "Was that thing just for practice, or is it edible? Schala did mention something about breakfast . . ." 

"The fruits are—well, the whole thing, really, but the fruit's the only part worth bothering with unless you're starving to death," the young Earthbound said. "It might not be all that satisfying for a carnivore, though." 

"One vegetarian meal won't hurt me," I said. "Although if we were planning a longer stay, I might try to set up a fish tank." I handed the first "fruit" I twisted from the tree to Schala before taking a second for myself. It turned out to have a pleasant bittersweet flavour . . . and soft flesh, which meant it wouldn't become stuck in my fangs the way apples and other firm fruit sometimes did. There was also no core, no seeds or pit, which was only to be expected from a fungus, really. 

"Making this was . . . weirdly satisfying," Ruan observed as we ate. "Forcing my will on something that wasn't really _there_ . . . Is that what magic is like?" 

"Yes and no," I said. "Magic isn't shaped by the caster's thoughts alone. Spells use symbolism—words, gestures, and sometimes more complicated constructs—to guide magical force. Whether those symbols influenced the magic directly or merely the mind of the caster . . . was the subject of considerable debate the last time I set foot on the Floating Islands. I don't know if a conclusion was ever reached." 

"If it was, no one ever told me," Schala said with a smile. 

Ruan made a frustrated noise. "I understand . . . and yet I know I don't. I wish . . ." He shook his head angrily instead of finishing the sentence. 

I turned my head slightly, looking out into the twisting darkness beyond the edges of the platform. "One of the things I was going to discuss with Melchior before events got away from us was exactly how much difference there is between an Enlightened and an Earthbound and whether an appropriate genetic overlay would enable magical operancy in someone who didn't already possess that ability. If it is possible, then . . ." 

At first, Ruan didn't seem to get it. Then I saw him, at the edge of my vision, go pale, then flush. 

"There are no guarantees that it will work," I warned him. "And even if it does, converted adults may well be crippled as mages. It's unlikely that you, personally, will ever be the equal of someone who was born with magic, although your children may well be. Mind you, it's quite possible—indeed, I would go so far as to describe it as _likely_ , given that Enlightened men often seem to think of taking an Earthbound mistress as a safe activity—that many of your people are _already_ potential mages. We're going to have to check Kaya's descendants carefully, for instance," I added with a grimace. 

"'Something for the future,'" Schala quoted softly. "This is what you meant that day. Oh, I hope you are right." 

"It all hinges on Melchior being alive, or someone of similar skill being available," I said. "Which means that I'm going to have to find out what happened to the old fool, I suppose. This may take a little while." I was going to need to follow the Guru forward through time from the circus which had accompanied our departure. I sat down on the nearest section of low wall and called up the time-viewing spell again. 

Melchior had left the circus surrounding our departure not long after we had, and gone to his laboratory at the palace. I skipped ahead through several hours of tinkering—it looked like he had been working on something that had to do with energy storage crystals—in an attempt to pinpoint when he had left, and frowned as I saw him answer a knock on the door, then back away in sudden startlement after he opened it. The figure that entered was human, clad in the uniform of an officer in the Security Forces. There was an argument which ended with Melchior having his wrists cuffed. The officer dragged him toward the door . . . then the old man stumbled against him, and the officer suddenly collapsed. Melchior took the key talisman from the other man's belt, unlocked the cuffs, and dragged the prone figure over to his workbench. There was just enough space there for the old man to fold his would-be captor into it in a way that would keep the man from being visible from the door. 

Melchior then went over to a corner, turned what _should_ have been a purely decorative crest on the wall through ninety degrees, then reached up with both hands and pressed on two other widely separated bits of apparently pointless decoration. Not far away, a section of floor with a heavy piece of apparatus on it trembled, then slid aside. The old Guru climbed down through the hole and used a big lever to shut it again before invoking a light spell. 

I followed him down a section of rough tunnel and into a cave that appeared to have been set up as a storeroom. Melchior inspected several crates there, then sighed and sat down on one. Skipping through the next several days brought me images of the old man reading, eating, pacing, sleeping. It looked as though he would be safe there for some time even if we did nothing, which was a relief. 

"Melchior is alive and not in any immediate danger," I said aloud to the others. "He's gone into hiding, though. There's clearly something wrong at the palace." And I wished I'd been able to hear what the arresting officer had been saying, but the damned spell didn't work that way. "I'll check on Algetty next." 

Skipping backward and forward through time, I managed to discover when the disorder at the Earthbound settlement had started: A messenger had gone to find the chief, and the old man had begun giving some very sharp orders. Following the messenger backwards took me to a cave containing perhaps two dozen children six to ten years old, and three elderly adults. Judging from the activities taking place, it appeared to be a school of sorts, teaching practical skills in flint-knapping and working mushroom wood. An apparently Earthbound man a little older than Ruan had entered the room, and a sudden explosion of lightning energy had left one of the elders unconscious on the floor and the children cowering in corners and under workbenches. There was some sort of argument, then one of the two remaining elders stuck his head out the door and called the messenger. 

I canceled the viewing spell temporarily and created a half-sized illusion of the not-an-Earthbound on the wall beside me. "Ruan, do you recognize this man?" 

Ruan barely had to do more than glance at the illusion. "That's Delk—one of Kaya's sons." 

"Kaya and Belthasar's son, apparently, and empowered and trained by his father," I said. "And he's holding several children hostage right now." Quickly, I reinvoked the viewing spell and began to spot-check forward in time. "We're going to have to intervene there, I suppose," I added with a grimace when I arrived at a point in time a bit into the future and saw the bodies. "Algetty just isn't able to handle mages. Vaie, go roll Talletar out of bed while I set up to get us out of here." 

Making multiple round trips out to the End of Time to carry the others out would have been exhausting, but there was another possibility: I could try to open another Gate, and I already knew where there was likely to be a weakness in the fabric of space-time that would accommodate one. It all depended on how much the Entity had shuffled them around on my own world, since the existence of the weaknesses themselves was, according to the temporal theory Gaspar had developed, inevitable. 

I went to the back room to retrieve a couple of empty vials from my cape's pockets, then to the fountain, to fill them with elixir. By the time I was tucking the full vials into my glove cuffs, Talletar had staggered from the embrace of his bed, and was chewing, with a grimace of apparent distaste, on a cave apple. Vaie, I noted, was smirking slightly, which made me wonder exactly what she had done in order to wake him. 

Schala touched my elbow lightly. "About Father . . ." 

"I thought we would leave him here for the time being," I said. "It would be safer—for us and for him. I can come back for him when the worst of this is over." 

She frowned. "It seems a little like abandoning him, but I suppose you are right." 

It occurred to me belatedly that we should both have been using "it"—a corpse has no gender—but I suppose neither of us was willing to refer aloud to the possibility that Marus would not be revived. Saying it might have made it real. 

"Janus, could you . . . hold me? Just for a moment?" 

"Of course," I said, and opened my arms. 

With her hands resting on the small of my back and her head on my shoulder, she observed, "This is not very comfortable when one is wearing armour, is it?" 

"After spending a few years wearing said armour, one tends to adapt," I said dryly, and got a muffled giggle, which coaxed an answering smile from me. 

Talletar finished his cave apple and gave us a very open glare. "I have a question for you, _Prince_ Janus." 

"Do you," I said flatly, instantly tensing for . . . battle? I forced myself to relax again, knowing that the idea was laughable. Now that I had my powers back, I could see just how strong Talletar's magic was, and the quality of his aura told me that he wasn't powerful enough to stand against me if I truly wanted him dead. 

"You don't dispute the title, I see. And yet, I don't think you've married the princess in some sort of secret ceremony . . . which suggests that your resemblance to the king is not a coincidence. Just who are you, really?" 

"That is no affair of yours." To my surprise, Schala responded before I could, and sharply as well. "I trust him, and that is all you need know." 

"No, princess, it is _not_ 'all I need know'. If I am to work with this man—presuming that he _is_ a man— I want to understand who and what he is. There should be no way for a mage of such power to just suddenly appear in Zeal—" 

"Therefore, the logical assumption is that I came from a place so far away that no simple exploration would ever find it," I interrupted . . . but I wasn't looking at Talletar. I was looking at Ruan, who was staring back at me with considerable intensity. "Tell me, do you know where we are right now? This is the end and beginning of Time—the wellspring of your universe. And yes, I do mean _your_ universe. Schala has had the opportunity to see a little of my world—enough, I think, to confirm that the two are different. I came to this world in order to protect her . . . and in the hope of saving some vestige of the civilization into which I was born, which was destroyed by Lavos when I was still a child." 

"That still doesn't entirely answer my question," Talletar said stubbornly. "Why would Belthasar call you 'prince'?" 

I gave him a fang-baring smile. "Presumably, because he used Lavos' powers to delve into my background. My full name is Janus Zeal. Son of Marus and Aleana. Had Zeal not been extinguished in my universe, I might have been its king." 

Talletar went absolutely white. "You . . . but you're not even human!" 

Inwardly, I sighed. How many times was I going to have to fend off that particular accusation from some fool? Once things had calmed down again, I might have Melchior make an announcement of some sort just to shut everyone up. "My appearance is the result of a magical accident during my childhood. Guru Melchior will confirm that if you like. Are you done wasting time yet?" 

The fire-element licked his lips. "Yes . . . your Highness." 

"Good, because we should get moving as fast as we can," Ruan said. "I don't like leaving Algetty at the mercy of some Enlightened, even if he did grow up there." 

With dry amusement, I said, "So you prefer to put it at our mercy instead?" 

"If the choice is between you and one of Belthasar's minions, then yes," came the measured response. "You don't have any reason to hold our children hostage, although I'm sure you, personally, would do it if you thought it was the only way of accomplishing something. The princess, on the other hand, would be unlikely to allow it, and you seem to consider pleasing her important. So yes, I do trust you to treat my people . . . gently." 

I couldn't think of a single reply to that, so instead I changed the subject. "Unfortunately, I can't take a group of this size directly to Algetty. The best I can do is land us inside a nearby cave. After that, we'll have to travel overland and enter the settlement in a normal way." Fortunately, everyone here— except for, arguably, me—was from the same era, so _that_ limitation, if it truly existed, wouldn't come up. 

"Which means that they'll be able to see us coming," Ruan completed with a grimace. "Still, if there's no other way . . ." 

I began to softly speak the Gate-opening spell. Fortunately, it didn't require any gestures, because Schala and I were still enwrapped in each other's arms. As the portal irised open, Vaie, as usual, went through without prompting. Ruan followed her, and then, after a glance at me, a subdued Talletar went. Then Schala sighed and reluctantly let go of me. 

"I suppose you need to be the last one through again," she said, and I nodded. "I will see you on the other side, then." 

It was odd, I mused as I watched her step through then waited for her to clear the other side of the Gate, how having my magical energies massively drained by such a spell felt almost pleasant now. Or perhaps "reassuring" would have been a better choice of word: the drain required my magic to be there and functioning. 

Surprisingly, the Gate provided a far less ragged ride this time than it had when we were fleeing Lavos, and I arrived right-side-up and with my feet planted firmly on the ground. I drank an elixir as the Gate irised shut behind me, and then pushed up off the ground and headed for the mouth of the cave, ignoring the way Ruan's eyebrows rose as I floated past. 

During the several hours of scrambling across rough terrain that followed, I ended up tagging both Ruan and Talletar with flight spells—Schala and Vaie had the use of wind-elemental magics and so didn't require my help. I only hoped that we wouldn't be noticed by either Belthasar's son Delk or anyone from the Palace . . . but I knew any form of magical concealment I attempted would actually _draw_ attention, and ordinary physical concealment was difficult with someone like Talletar in the party. I breathed a sigh of regret for the old days, when I could have done something highly unpleasant to the fire-user and no one around me would have batted an eyelash. Belatedly, it occurred to me that I could have made up some excuse to leave him at the End of Time while the rest of us got on with things . . . if I had been certain that I could trust him alone with the king's body. 

I landed lightly on a ridge that gave me a good view, with the assistance of a longsight spell, of the entrance to Algetty. Two Earthbound spearmen flanked it, occasionally stamping their feet or walking briefly in circles in an apparent attempt to improve their circulation. I conjured images of both of them for Ruan. 

"Is either of them one of Kaya's children, or a close friend of someone who is?" I asked. Ruan squinted for a moment, then shook his head. "Good. It should be safe enough to just walk in, then." 

As we scrambled down the last slope toward the entrance, attracting the attention of the sentries, I let Ruan take the lead. At first, the two guards didn't seem to recognize him, and kept their spears pointed in our direction, but then one of them squinted and blinked and raised his back to the neutral position. 

"What are you _doing_?" asked the other guard, and the first one laughed. 

"Looks different without his beard, doesn't he?" 

The second guard blinked and squinted. " _Ruan?_ I thought you were a Floatie!" Then he glanced around at the rest of us. "Um . . ." 

"Do not worry—we were not offended," Schala said. Talletar sniffed, as though to say, _speak for yourself._ "Can you inform us about the situation here?" 

I half-listened to the guard describing the situation I had already seen by means of the time-viewing spell while I mused on the word _Floatie_. For some reason, I hadn't expected the Earthbound to have a derogatory word for the Enlightened, although, upon reflection, I should have. _Although they're going to have to come up with a new one now that Zeal is on the ground._

" . . . Kaya?" 

I returned my attention to the conversation as Ruan slowly shook his head. 

"Damn," said the first guard. "So much for any chance of talking Delk down." 

"He listens to his sister sometimes," Ruan pointed out. 

"No one's seen Isa since this started, though." 

"Then maybe finding her should be our first step." Ruan glanced at me as he spoke. 

I shrugged. "It's an option, but I think it would be better to set others of your people on it if they aren't searching for her already. The simplest way of dealing with this Delk would probably be for me to teleport into the room behind him and stick a knife in his back." 

Ruan frowned. "That's—" 

"—ugly, but quick and efficient," I snapped. "It wouldn't be the first time I've done something of the sort, either." 

"I think we should talk to the headman first," Schala said firmly. "He may have additional information about the situation, and he can set up the search for Isa." 

I shrugged. "Very well." 

"My grandfather has probably called a council," Ruan said. "I'll take you to the room where they usually meet." 

It turned out to be on a very low level of the cave complex. Even through the door, I was able to hear the people inside arguing, although with several of them speaking at once I wasn't able to pick out any individual words. 

Ruan opened the door without knocking, and stepped inside. The rest of us followed. 

The Council of Algetty turned out to consist of twenty-three men and women, all quite elderly—and all, from the looks of it, feeling slightly relieved at the interruption caused by our entrance. The relief turned to irritation when Talletar looked around the room and sniffed loudly. I wondered how he could keep his supercilious attitude intact after everything we had been through. 

It was a shame that, if he had any sense at all, he had probably protected himself against muting spells before leaving on our little expedition. While watching him flap his mouth soundlessly would have been neither amusing nor especially satisfying, it might have at least kept him from getting into further trouble. 

"Ruan!" The old headman lurched up from the bench on which he had been sitting. His eyes searched the rest of our group frantically, and a little light went out of them when he was done. "Is Kaya . . . ?" 

"Dead," I said harshly. "And she wouldn't have ordered your current problem to stand down in any case. They were both part of the same conspiracy." 

The old man muttered a curse, so softly that I was very likely the only one who heard it. "Then the children are doomed. Leave us, please. There is a great deal going on here right now, and we do not have time for a prolonged discussion with you." 

"We already know about Delk and his hostages," Ruan said. "Tell me, has anyone been looking for Isa?" 

"She has not been seen in quite some time," one of the other council members said. "Everything in her room is layered with dust. Either she is dead, or she has left Algetty, and it has not been one of our priorities to determine which." 

Now it was my turn to curse. Granted, this "Isa" might be dead, but it was more likely that she was Belthasar's daughter, and off somewhere wreaking havoc. 

"We're going to have to do this the ugly way, then," I said. 

Schala shook her head. "No, I think there is another possibility. I know an area-flood sleep spell that can be made to expand through walls. I can stand out in the hallway and cast it without risk to myself," she added with a smile at me. "Once they are all asleep, we can enter the room and capture this Delk. It is unlikely that he has any defenses against Void spells, since he should never have needed them." 

I felt the sting of irritation, and immediately forced myself to quash it. Schala being more assertive, I told myself, was a good thing: if we were unable to salvage Marus, she would soon be Queen, and I couldn't make all her decisions for her—nor did I have any business trying. And having Delk alive might be useful. Anything we could wring out of him about his father's plans would be more than we knew right now on the subject. 

"If you're certain you will be able to spread the spell throughout the entire room, it would be worth trying," I said neutrally, and tilted my head in the direction of Ruan's grandfather. Algetty was his territory and responsibility, so ultimately he would have to make this choice. 

The headman cleared his throat. "It would seem to be a reasonable proposal—we've certainly come up with none better. I call for a vote. All in favour of letting Princess Schala assist us . . . ?" 

It was almost unanimous. Only one old man on the far side of the room failed to raise his hand in assent. I wasn't particularly surprised when Ruan, noticing me looking at him, leaned over and whispered, "Kaya's father" in my ear. He probably wouldn't have approved of any plan for attacking his grandson, even this relatively benign one. 

A few minutes later, we were crowded into the hall outside the classroom Delk had taken over . . . and "crowded" is indeed the precise word I want. Not only had Talletar and Vaie, who weren't really involved, come along, but most of the council members had also trailed along behind us. Kaya's father was near the front, and I made a mental note to keep an eye on him. Just in case. 

I touched Ruan's shoulder as Schala began her incantation. "Just in case he _is_ protected, you should be ready to lunge through that door immediately as it's opened," I said. "If necessary, I'll teleport past you." 

The young Earthbound nodded in acknowledgement. 

The sleep spell was . . . not perfectly directed. Most of the Earthbound council members who had come down here with us slid down into sitting positions against the walls and began to snore as Schala completed her incantation, and I saw her blush as she realized what had happened. Those of us who had been on the Lavos-hunt were, of course, protected. 

"It's their own fault," I said. Then, to Ruan, "Open it." 

The young Earthbound reached for the door. 

Inside, the oil lamps which lit the room were guttering, their wicks too long untrimmed. It took me a moment to see past the effects of the dancing shadows and decide that the people strewn across the floor were most likely all truly unconscious. Children lay half-under the meager furniture, many of them curled into fetal positions. 

Delk, on the other hand, was lying on his back in the middle of the floor, snoring. His aura, which the time-viewing spell had not shown me, indicated that he was a far weaker mage than his father, but was that due to the genes passed to him by his mother, or to simple lack of magical exercise? He would have had to practice his spells only in secret, living a lie all his life. Why had Belthasar not brought him to the Floating Islands? Did he resent having been forced to stay in Algetty? And if he did, could we use that? 

Ruan knelt down and examined Delk for a moment, then gave me a quick grin. "I'll go get a rope." 

I nodded. I was still tense, a great deal more so than the current situation warranted. Why? 

_It's all going too smoothly,_ I decided after a moment's thought. _I keep expecting the other shoe to drop._ Unfortunately, I couldn't force that to happen in a timely manner. 

* * *

I shut the door firmly behind us and placed a lock spell over it for good measure, isolating myself and Ruan in the small room with the bound and helpless Delk. I didn't want Schala to see what we were going to be doing here. I didn't trust her to acknowledge it as necessary. 

It had been more than an hour since Schala had cast her spell, but so far Belthasar's son hadn't woken up, even though sleep spells normally lost their strength after a few minutes. _He can't have slept well last night. Guilty conscience, perhaps?_

I nodded to Ruan, who hefted the bucket he was carrying, then shifted his grip slightly and threw the contents into Delk's face. 

The not-Earthbound awoke spluttering as the cold water slapped him, and began to struggle with his bonds. I gave him a few moments, then took two strides forward across the muddy floor and kicked him ungently in the ribs. Delk stopped wriggling and stared up at me, eyes narrowed with rage. His lips moved, trying to form a curse, but no sound came out. I'd set that spell before we'd even entered the room, to reinforce his total helplessness . . . although I would have to take it off soon, if we were to get anything useful from this session. 

I'd chosen the dagger carefully: it was the one Caeron had given me all those years ago, looking almost delicate in my adult hand. A childish spell that I'd placed on it caused it to leave trails of shadow in the air as I idly played with it. 

"You've made something of a nuisance of yourself, you know," I said to Delk as I circled him slowly. "You and your parents." 

Unexpectedly, Ruan tugged something from his pocket and dangled it in Delk's face: a leather thong with a small piece of carven mushroom wood dangling from it. Belthsar's son gave it a horrified look and mouthed a word that I thought might have been _mother_! 

I nodded to Ruan again, and he grabbed Delk by the hair and hauled him upright. I traced the simple pattern needed to cancel the muting spell with the point of the dagger. "What do you have to say for yourself?" I asked. 

Delk licked his lips, his eyes rolling in an attempt to watch the dagger as I deliberately moved it in and out of his field of vision. "What are you going to do?" 

"Get everything you know out of you," I said evenly. "One way or the other." 

The process that followed was . . . not pretty . . . although the imp torturer I had employed as ruler of the Mystics would have made me look like the amateur I was. At first, I did my damndest not to do my victim any permanent injury, knowing that Schala would prefer it that way . . . but Delk was stubborn, and that meant that I had to up the ante: for some fools, the threat of mutilation was the only thing that would get them to talk. I had Ruan prop Delk upside-down against the wall, slipped the tip of the dagger into the front of one sandal, and began to saw. Ruan left the room at that point, and my acute hearing brought me the sound of retching coming from just outside the door. As out-of-practice at this sort of thing as I was, I felt a bit nauseous myself, but I forced myself to continue without giving any sign of it. 

Two toes later, I used my powers to flip Delk right- side-up again, and put the point of the dagger to his left eye. The touch of cold, blood-slick metal to delicate, liquid-filled flesh finally . . . persuaded . . . him, and he began to babble everything he knew of Belthasar's plans. Which wasn't much, but it was also clear that I would get no more. 

I cut my victim's bonds and left him sitting there in a puddle of evil-smelling fluid, trying to remove the sandal from his damaged foot, while I slipped out the door and slapped another locking-spell on it from the outside. Then I leaned my forehead against the cool stone of the corridor wall. I wanted so very badly to weep, but my eyes were as dry as the desert sand. Somewhere deep down, I had started to believe I was finally leaving all of the horrors behind, that I could make a life for myself in this world that was free of the worst of the shadows of my past . . . and then to be forced to do something like what I had just done . . . 

"Janus?" 

I raised my head and saw Schala standing a few feet away. I couldn't read her expression. 

"Are you . . . all right?" 

"Sick at heart, perhaps," I said. "And what are you doing here? I thought I asked you to stay away." 

She hesitated. "I saw Ruan come running down the hallway, and I thought . . . I don't know what I thought." 

"Ruan, not having spent half his life in hell, has a weak stomach," I said evenly. "I haven't had that luxury." 

Schala swallowed visibly. "Is Delk . . . still alive?" 

"I didn't have to get quite that vicious with him. He'll probably limp a bit from now on, though. It isn't as though I _wanted_ to hurt him," I added, "but we needed what he knew, and we may not have very much time." 

"Who are you trying to convince—me, or yourself?" Schala asked, with a wry little half-smile. 

"I wish I knew." Then I forced myself to change the subject. "Delk didn't know much—I think Belthasar may have considered him . . . a bit slow—but I did find out one thing: Isa is in Zeal." 

"Then . . . she truly is part of this." 

"It seems that way. Given that Belthasar was the one who planned this out, I would assume that she is also the more intelligent, and therefore the more dangerous, of his children." 

Schala frowned. "She is a good actress, then. When I met her, I thought her sweet and perhaps a bit simple." 

"You _met_ her?" I stopped there, flipped mentally through the alternatives. "Either she isn't really Belthasar's, or she was taking special measures to conceal her aura. That . . . isn't good." 

"Belthasar knew such a spell," Schala said slowly. "He invested it into a talisman for me once, when I was little, and I used it to hide from my nurse at bedtime. I stopped doing it after Mother nearly had the entire Security Force turned out to search for me." 

This image of a mischievous young Schala startled a snort of amusement from me, as I think she had intended. 

"I'm going to have to return to the End of Time for a little while after I talk to the others," I said, beginning to walk along the corridor. Schala fell in beside me. "It's the safest way to find out exactly what's going on at the Palace, now that we have the situation defused here. I just wish that Delk had known more. The most the time-viewing spell can give me is a little insight into what will happen if I _don't_ interfere with events, and that isn't very useful right now. We need to know about his contingency plans." 

"What about looking in on him when he was making those plans, and discussing them with his children?" Schala asked. 

"Unfortunately, even if I knew when he had done that—and I don't think I can sit there and watch everything the old man has done for the past few years without dying of boredom—I can't read lips, and the spell is strictly visual," I explained. 

We took a few steps in silence. 

"Every fragment of information helps," Schala said at last. "Any detail might suggest a plan to one of us." 

I shrugged agreement. "And knowing what little we know at the moment, how would you proceed to retake Zeal?" 

A bemused little smile. "Is this a test?" She didn't wait for an answer, but continued, "The little we know is too little. My first action would be to send someone in to act as a scout—Vaie, most likely, since so few people notice constructs, or can tell them apart if they do." A quick glance at me. "Do I pass?" 

"It's certainly a valid option," I said. 

"Now you sound like . . ." She didn't finish the sentence, and I could see the light dying from her eyes. I knew what she had to be thinking of: Marus, lying at the End of Time in his enchanted shell, waiting for me to return for him. 

_I miss him too,_ I thought, and was surprised to discover upon analysis that that was absolutely true. 

Ruan turned out to have joined Talletar and Vaie in the small room down the hall which had been set aside for our use. He was still slightly pale green around the edges, which led me to wonder whether he had completely regained control of his stomach . . . and whether, in my world, he had been ancestral to Glenn. His colouring gradually returned to normal as I explained what I had—and more importantly, what I _hadn't_ — learned from Delk, although I suspect it was the knowledge that Belthasar's fool son was still alive and not seriously maimed that actually calmed him. There were only a couple of years' worth of difference in the two men's ages, so they had to have grown up together. Perhaps they had even been friends. 

Childhood friends. Now, there was an odd concept. Oh, I understood the idea intellectually, but not viscerally. How did it feel, to have someone by your side who wasn't kin, but had nonetheless shared those times with you, and could talk about them? It . . . wasn't entirely a pleasant thought, really—how many things that you wanted forgotten could such a person drag back into the light of day? And how much would that matter to someone who hadn't been through hell? 

I let such thoughts fill my mind until I reached the End of Time, on the grounds that even such useless meandering was a distraction of sorts. Then, alone, I sat down on the low wall bordering the first half of the platform, murmured the spell, and turned my gaze on the palace. 

I started in Melchior's laboratory, which appeared to have been ransacked since the old man had left—although given its normal state of disorder, it was difficult to tell for certain—and checked on Melchior himself before skipping back through time to find the officer who had attempted to arrest him and follow him back up the chain of command. 

It didn't take many hops. The junior officer reported to a senior officer, who went straight to the throne room. 

I stared incredulously at the smirking figure lounging on the throne. _Dalton?!_ Oh, I'd known that the human cockroach was still at large somewhere, but I hadn't expected him to be able to take over Zeal in less than two days. That would have required actual competence. 

I forced myself to pull my attention from Dalton and actually look around a bit, because the blonde man wasn't the only one up on the dais. There was also a slender figure to his left: a woman in the uniform of the Security Forces. She stood in a position that seemed to have been taken from the parade manual of some far more formal military force: chin up, shoulders square, feet together, arms straight at her sides. Her hair was dark and cropped short, and something about her nose and brow-line convinced me that we had found the missing Isa. As Dalton's next interview concluded, he gestured, and she leaned over and spoke with him for a few moments. 

I banished the viewing spell with a muttered word, but I continued to sit where I was for several moments, staring into the swirling darkness beyond the platform, because a question was nagging at my mind: Whatever had possessed Belthasar to make use of _Dalton_? I couldn't believe that even the blonde man's background with the security forces would have made it worthwhile to have to deal with the combination of idiocy and impossible ego that came with the package. Granted, the human cockroach was predictable, and therefore easy to manipulate, but there were dozens of other Enlightened of whom that was also true. 

Could it be that Belthasar had chosen Dalton just because he knew that the blonde man annoyed me? 

I ran my fingers over the surface of the steel crescent at my side. We needed a plan, and in truth, Schala's idea of sending Vaie in to scout was beginning to look more and more attractive. Even assassinating Dalton and Isa wouldn't necessarily clean things up at this stage: I needed to know just how deep the rot had spread before I could excise it. 

_I wish I knew more about the politics involved— who Dalton's supporters would be and why._ Schala would know some things, true, but the man who knew the most about the situation was currently a preserved corpse lying in a sealed room not twenty feet away from me. Which suggested something else I could do before sending Vaie off. 

Melchior was asleep when I dropped into his little home-away-from-home beneath the foundations of the palace. I drank the necessary elixir before shaking him awake . . . and nearly took an ice spell to the face for my pains. 

"Prince Janus! I . . . did not expect to see you alive again," the old man admitted. "And what—" 

I held up a hand. "We have a great deal to discuss, but I would prefer to do it somewhere safer. I'm going to have to pick you up." 

"W-what?" 

I spoke a strengthening spell, picked the old man up, and teleported the two of us to Algetty before he could say or do anything else. The sudden change of venue seemed to get his attention, and he nearly wriggled out of my arms before I could put him down. 

"Princess Schala! And . . . the king . . . ?" 

"That's one of the things we need to discuss with you," I said grimly. "But first of all, there is something else I need to do. Vaie, these are your orders . . ." 

Explanations began after the gargoyle sergeant left on her reconnaissance mission, and took more than an hour. 

" . . . so his Majesty is, at least temporarily, dead," Melchior said at last, looking thoughtfully at both Schala and myself, while in the background, Ruan stood like a statue, and Talletar sat on a bench and fidgeted. Vaie hadn't returned yet, and I didn't expect to see her for several more hours. 

In the end, Melchior focussed on Schala. "What are your orders, your Majesty?" 

"First, that you accept Janus' commands as my own," Schala said. "Janus, perhaps it is time that you went to fetch . . ." Schala swallowed visibly. 

I nodded. The diagram I had earlier drawn in the corner of the room was still intact, so it took only seconds to transport myself back to the End of Time. 

The first sign of something wrong was the cave-apple tree, or rather its pot: It had been shattered, and lay in pieces on the ground, with the fungus that had formerly inhabited it spilled out to die. I froze in place, searched my surroundings with all my senses extended to the limit, and found . . . nothing. Whoever had been here had either found some way to conceal themselves, or had already left. 

I forced myself to walk over to the fountain, drink of it, and check again, probing the swirling darkness beyond the platform for auras. Nothing . . . but who was to say that I would have sensed anything in that chaos? Regardless, I had a very unpleasant suspicion of what I would find beyond the door to the bedroom. 

The foam mattresses had been slashed to pieces in an orgy of senseless destruction, and the far door appeared to have been attacked with an explosive. Either way, it was gone, splintered. Grimly, I approached it and looked through . . . and found the room on the other side empty of both Marus' body and the Frozen Flame. 

I snarled a rather unlikely description of Belthasar's ancestry—and Dalton's as well, just for good measure—and heard a giggle from behind me. I spun around, one hand raised, already shaping the framework for Dark Matter inside my head. 

Not unexpectedly, the giggler was Isa. She held the Frozen Flame, bare of its wrappings, in her arms, hugging it to her torso as though the chunk of Dreamstone were her lover. The fact that it most likely held some vestige of her father's spirit only made the thought even more obscene. She smirked at me. 

"Don't waste your time on attacking me, _Prince_ Janus. Alone, you'll never get through the Flame's defenses." 

" _Where is he?_ " I snapped, ignoring her idiocy—who did she think had handled "the Flame's defenses" in order to capture it in the first place? 

"Safe," came the calm reply. "Safe in a place where you will never find him without help. Don't worry, we haven't canceled that ingenious little time-warp spell of yours or anything like that, so he should be just fine. Apart from being dead, that is." 

I vented another vile sixth-century curse while Isa watched me, clearly amused. Belthasar had to have told his daughter more than I had thought he had known, in order for her to be here—now that I was looking for it, I could see the talisman at her belt, pulsing with powerful entwined shadow and lightning energies . . . and Isa herself was a strong lightning-element. Not as powerful as Marus or Schala, granted, but she would nevertheless be dangerous in a fight. 

"What do you want?" It grated on me to ask the question, but I needed to know. _I hate the hostage game._ And I especially hated it being played against me, with so much at stake. 

A soft chuckle. "We want you to make our lives easier, of course." 

"In what way?" If she wanted me to play along and drag the information out of her, I would do it . . . for now. 

"By luring your allies into a trap, of course." 

I was tempted to reply with another curse, but I knew she would just have laughed, and so I weighed my options in silence. The first was obvious: don't play the game. It would mean abandoning Marus, but Schala would be safe, and I had no doubt that I would eventually find a way to get rid of Dalton and Isa. 

The only problem with that was that I wanted Marus to live. 

The second option, obeying Isa and going over to her side, was easy enough to reject out of hand. 

The third option . . . The third option was to play along, ingratiate myself with Isa and Dalton, and then stab them in the back. It was the most efficient path . . . but it would alienate my allies and quite possibly make Schala hate me. And then there was an additional, terrifying question: had Belthasar known enough about me to predict that this was the option I would prefer? If so, what obstacles might he have placed in my path? 

"Don't overwhelm me with your enthusiasm," Isa said dryly. "It's clear that you need some time to think about this. I will return in an hour." 

She stroked the talisman at her side and vanished into nothing. I stared at the space from which she had disappeared for a moment, then vented a harsh laugh. 

_Welcome back to hell . . . or did I ever really leave?_

What I needed to do was . . . almost painfully clear. I didn't really need an hour, or even ten minutes, to think about it. I just needed to stop lying to myself. 

_Schala, I'm sorry._

When Isa returned, I was ready. 

"Well?" 

"I wouldn't leave a dead dog in Dalton's hands," I said, and watched her smile widen. "I only hesitated because I have such an awkward history with him." Hopefully she would accept that excuse for my lack of enthusiasm. "What do you want me to do?" 

Her briefing was thorough, the scenario it presented difficult for me to subvert—doubly so since she made it very clear that no one of importance from her side would be present. If she or Dalton intended to watch my betrayal and laugh about it, they would do it from a distance, through a spell, until it was too late for me to do anything. 

When I pointed out to her that Schala and the others were not in total ignorance about the state of affairs at the palace—although I was extremely careful not to mention Vaie—Isa just laughed and said that she trusted my ingenuity. 

The question, I reflected grimly as I spoke the spell that would transport me back to the real world, was did she trust it too little, or too much? 

* * *

"Are you sure this is a good idea?" Ruan asked for the third time, and for the third time, I ignored him. The young Earthbound was too acute . . . and I hadn't wanted him to come along on this anyway, but he had insisted, and Schala had overruled me. 

"Guard!" Vaie hissed, and we all ducked behind a leafless hedge. The palace gardens would have been easier to sneak through had the vegetation been in better health, but it was dark enough that we had some chance of moving unseen. 

At least we had been able to leave Talletar behind in Algetty. 

A hand touched my arm. "Janus . . ." 

I turned to face Schala. "What is it?" 

"You have been very . . . distant, these past few hours." 

I forced myself to smile, and hoped that the result looked realistic. I was out of practice at this kind of deception. "I'm tired, that's all. All of this is beginning to become . . . wearing." 

She curled in against me, resting her head on my shoulder. "On me as well. I cannot even say that it will soon be over, but . . . neither of us is alone in it, and surely that must count for something." 

I wrapped an arm around her, but made no reply . . . for I was as alone as I could possibly be. 

"Gone," Vaie murmured at last, in a tone designed to carry no further than the four of us. "Judging from what we've seen so far, we probably have about ten minutes." 

"We should be through the door before then," I whispered back. "Let's go." 

We ran, crouched over, from bare hedge to bare hedge, hoping all the while that the sound of branches rattling in the wind would cover that of our footsteps. Schala and I had the additional problem of trying to keep our auras hidden without the aid of one of Belthasar's clever little talismans. The best we could do was concentrate on holding our energies in close to our bodies, and hope that the constructs guarding this area weren't too observant . . . because if one did get close enough to see us, it would be immediately obvious who Schala and I were, and I knew for a fact that not all the constructs were in on Isa's plan. Some of them still believed in Schala, and would have revolted if asked to attack her. For all I knew, a few of the poor fools might even still believe in me. 

_Just concentrate on getting to that door,_ I told myself. If we couldn't manage that step, then none of the rest would matter anyway. 

The next ten minutes, in which we passed from the hedge maze to a side entrance half-hidden behind dry and crackling vines, held the floating unreality of a nightmare. The soft sound of bits of vegetation sloughing off as we opened the door sounded like a thunderclap, and I found myself gritting my teeth. The constructs patrolling the garden were _not_ in on Isa's plan, and if they caught us, we would have to fight our way out and try again another time . . . except that I wasn't sure I would have the nerve to go through with this a second time. Betrayal was nothing new to me, but betraying _Schala_ , even if only in appearance . . . 

Vaie signaled the all-clear from the other side of the door, and Schala and I slipped inside, with Ruan bringing up the rear. 

"This hallway is full of dust," the young Earthbound whispered as he came up beside me. "Are you _sure_ this is how this mysterious loyalist contact of yours suggested we enter the building?" 

"I chose the route," I whispered back instantly, having prepared the excuse in advance . . . just in case. "My contact only suggested the location of the meeting itself." 

"Well, I guess I can't complain—after all, we've made it this far." But Ruan was giving me a slightly odd look. "Where to now?" 

"Vaie knows." And indeed, even as I spoke, the gargoyle was darting ahead to look down a narrow stairwell. 

We followed her down to one of the many awkwardly-located and disused rooms in the palace's basement, every footstep stirring up dust that even an indifferent tracker like me could see had already been disturbed. 

"There have been a lot of people through here recently," Ruan whispered to Schala and I, and I nodded—what else could I do, after all? "Now what?" 

"We wait," I said, taking up a position leaning against the wall beside the door. 

"No need," said a voice that seemed to come from the air. The far wall of the room wavered and collapsed, becoming a small force of constructs, including several Mages. I could hear more moving to fill the hall outside. But the first person to step through the door was, not unexpectedly, Isa. 

"Thank you, Janus—you did that exceptionally well," she said . . . and I saw Schala's face go white, then completely wipe itself of all expression. 

"I didn't do it for your sake," I said in my coldest, flattest tone of voice. 

Isa smiled sweetly. "Oh, I know." 

Vaie and Schala both surrendered calmly, the little gargoyle laying her weapons on the floor before anyone even bothered asking her. Ruan clearly considered resisting—I could see it in the way his hand clenched around the haft of his spear while his face reddened and his mouth set itself in a flat line—but what he ended up doing was very deliberately spitting on my boot and then dropping his weapon so that it clattered to the floor. 

"Get me out of here before I kill this—this—" he said to Isa as spells wiped the evidence of his displeasure from my footwear. Belthasar's daughter gestured obligingly at a quartet of Lashers. Two of them grabbed the Earthbound's arms, while the other two provided an escort. They had to haul him through the door sideways. 

Vaie went next, escorted by two fellow gargoyles and a Mage. She gave me a long, thoughtful look on the way past, but I couldn't tell what was behind it, because she had wiped her face as clean of expression as I had. 

Schala was not so restrained. As they moved her past me, she whispered, "I believe in you," in a tone clearly meant for my ears alone, and I had to close my eyes for just an instant. 

Isa chuckled as Schala was led away. "She truly does love you, doesn't she? How very interesting. You don't seem like the sort of person who would inspire such trust." 

"Schala is naive," I replied with a half-shrug. "It makes her easy to manipulate." Like all truly good lies, the remark contained a hint of truth. I didn't attempt to press home the implications, either, instead letting them spread out like oil over water, and watching the expression in Isa's eyes change as she assimilated them. After all, why would I have noted Schala's naivete unless I was planning to use her, and why would I have been interested in that unless I had sought power over Zeal? Belthasar would have thought the whole thing too convenient, I'm sure, but Isa was not her father. 

Isa gave me a long, thoughtful look, and I made myself keep my gaze level, allowing her to meet my eyes, but not forcing it. Slowly, she began to smile. 

"I'm starting to think that this is the beginning of a most mutually beneficial partnership," she said. 

"Perhaps," I replied with a shrug—best not to seem too eager. "However, I have yet to see the reward you promised me for my good behaviour." 

"I'll see that he's brought to you . . . although I admit that I don't see what use you have for a corpse." 

Deliberately, I smirked. "Not for a corpse. Keep in mind that Marus still hasn't been proven unrevivifiable . . . which means that he is still King of Zeal. And with the King and Princess indisposed, the Guru of Reason dead, and the Guru of Life missing . . . Well, _someone_ has to step into the power vacuum, don't you think?" 

A tilt of the head. "My father was right: you _do_ have a twisty mind. I like it. I like it very much." A slender hand came to rest on my upper arm, then began to work its way down, tracing the contours of the muscles until it reached the cuff of my glove. " _Very_ much," Isa purred. 

I forced amusement onto my face, made the tips of my gloved fingers trail over the back of her hand as I pulled away, and for the first time in quite a long time, thanked Flea inside my mind, rather than cursing him. Without his example, well, I might have recognized Isa's actions as flirtation, but I doubt I would have had any idea how to reciprocate. 

Play her like a fish, use her against Dalton then cast her aside . . . it was a tedious game, but a familiar one, and I would do whatever was required to win it. 

" . . . expect Dalton will want to meet with you," Isa was saying. 

I shrugged. "I suppose we should get that over with," I said, not bothering to hide my distaste. 

"He doesn't like you very much either," Isa said, using the act of drawing me toward the door as an excuse to put her hand on the bare part of my arm again. "You seem to have a habit of attacking him." 

"He has a habit of getting in my way," I replied, with another shrug, as we stepped out into the corridor. 

Isa laughed, and I wondered, behind my mask of indifference, exactly who had chosen that she be trained in this kind of flirtation. On the one hand, it didn't seem to quite fit with other aspects of her personality, but on the other hand, I had never suspected Belthasar of the sort of misogyny that would have be required for him to force that sort of course of study on her . . . until now. Of course, it was possible that he had just considered her to be of an inferior species because her mother had been an Earthbound . . . but how far back did that imply he had been planning this whole mess? 

I breathed a soundless sigh as we began to climb the stairs back to the main level, because I knew it was a question that I was never likely to have answered. 

Dalton was still where I had last seen him: in the throne room, lounging on the throne itself. I marched straight up to him, mounted the dais so that I was standing practically on his toes, and went through a mental exercise that I knew would make my aura flare up. It was satisfying to see the human cockroach shiver as my shadow fell across him. _Begin as you mean to continue._ I eyed him in silence and waited for him to speak. 

"Hello, Janus." Dalton's effort at nonchalance was thwarted by another shiver. I offered him a minuscule shrug, nothing more. There were a few more moments of silence before his nerve broke. "Say something, damn you! And stop standing on my feet!" 

"What do you expect me to say?" I asked evenly. Otherwise, I didn't move—it was Dalton who straightened up and drew his feet in, away from my boots. I waited until he was done before adding, "You have something of mine. I want it back." 

A slow smirk. "I have a couple of things of yours, I think. Here's one of them." Reaching down beside the throne, Dalton produced a length of dark blue fabric: the cape I had used to wrap the Frozen Flame in. "You'll be glad to know that the contents have been returned to where they belong." 

I plucked the garment disdainfully from his fingers and swirled it back into its proper place across my shoulders. "I'm surprised you bothered. You've never struck me as religious." I would have to stay away from the Hall of the Flame: with its Arbitor dead, even temporarily, the damned rock would doubtless be searching for a substitute. 

"That was another Dalton you knew, not me," the human cockroach said with a smirk. "But I suppose it must be getting difficult for you to keep track." 

I contemplated flaying him and using his tanned hide to upholster the throne—he had just taken the verbal initiative from me, damn him. The other Dalton hadn't been nearly smart enough to pull that off. 

"And the other . . . item . . . you've been holding onto for me?" When all else fails, change the subject. 

Isa spoke up before Dalton could. "Shall I have the king's body placed in Prince Janus' room, sir?" 

Dalton laughed. "Oh, yes, that's perfect! The rumours we could spread . . ." 

_Trust the prospect of insinuating that I practice incestuous homosexual necrophilia to lighten up his day,_ I thought sourly. "That would be acceptable, at least until better arrangements can be made." 

The blonde man cocked his head. "Better arrangements, hmm? Isa, did we ever figure out where Melchior went?" 

"No, sir." Belthasar's daughter eyed me askance, and I did my best to look innocent. After all, Melchior had spirited himself out of their grip first—I'd just removed him to a more secure hiding place. 

"And Prince Janus' companions?" Dalton gave me a lazy smile. 

"The princess has been placed under house arrest in her room," Isa replied. "The gargoyle is being punished—she'll go back to her troop and six months' cleaning duty if there's anything left of her after that. We threw the Earthbound into the old dungeons. Perhaps someone will even remember to feed him while he's there." 

"Excellent," Dalton said, then added, "don't you think, Janus?" 

I shrugged. "It will suffice for the time being," I said. I wasn't about to ask him whether or not he could tell constructs apart well enough to know whether or not he was punishing the right gargoyle. I was willing to bet that he couldn't, since it had taken me years of living among the Mystics to be able to do that reliably. I was also willing to bet that one of Vaie's troopers would offer to take all aspects of her punishment for her, since I had noticed that she was well-liked by her troops. The question was, how would she use the reprieve? I made a mental note to layer some extra wards around my room, lest she try to assassinate me in the mistaken belief that she was doing the best thing for Zeal. Even I have to sleep sometime. 

Dalton exchanged a look with Isa, who smiled insincerely at me. "Perhaps you would like to rest now—that little invasion of our gardens must have been exhausting." 

In other words, they wanted to get rid of me so that they could discuss something that they didn't want me to hear . . . and right now, it would be best not to resist. I needed to build up their confidence in me. 

I turned away without another word, leaving my cape to swirl around behind me, uncontrolled . . . and hoping that it hit Dalton on the nose. 

Inside my room, I discovered that Marus' body had been placed in the bed—another of Dalton's juvenile attempts at humour, no doubt. I ignored it while I searched the room for observation devices, and found two: one on the bookshelves, the other attached to the top of a windowframe, so that I had to levitate up in order to pry it free. I destroyed them both—it was, after all, what Isa would have been expecting me to do—and then moved the corpse across the room, laying it carefully down on the carpet. 

Then I laid myself down on the bed that had lately been occupied by a corpse—although, truth be told, my boots were probably doing the bedding less good than Marus' unmoving self had—and tried to decide on my next move . . . but instead I found myself seeing, over and over again, Schala's face, hearing her voice telling me that she believed in me . . . 

In the end, I cursed and sat up again. As I moved, my arm struck something small, warm, and furry, which _mreowed_ reproachfully at the contact. 

"I had almost forgotten about you," I admitted to young Alfador, who gave me a green-eyed blink, then climbed into my lap and started to purr as he rubbed himself against my elbow. "Perhaps I should start carrying you around after all—it would certainly confuse Dalton and Isa." 

All I got back was a _purrrr_. I sighed and ran a finger lightly down his spine, wondering where the palace's other cats were hiding—I hadn't seen any of them since my return here, and the soft tapping sound coming from the wall seemed to suggest that the building was being invaded by mice. 

Then I realized exactly which wall it was that I was leaning against. After a moment, I whispered a spell, masochistically giving myself a look into the room on the other side. 

Schala was leaning against the wall with one side of her face pressed to the stone. She still wore the clothes she had chosen for our fight with Lavos, armour and all. 

"I know you are there, Janus," she said to the empty air. 

I spoke another spell, knowing that I might well be adding to my self-torture, but at the same time unable to stop myself. "And if I am?" I whispered. "What good will it do us to talk, Schala? If I have some plan, I must lie to you and say I do not . . . and if I do not, then all conversing with you can do for me is cause heartbreak." I didn't feel entirely secure in expressing such sentiments when there might be listening devices in Schala's room, but I reassured myself that she would have to be practically on top of them in order for them to hear me now. 

"I believe in you," she said again. "I don't want to speak of our situation—indeed, I would prefer to speak of things completely unrelated to it. Reassure me, Janus, the way you did when Belthasar had us locked away. Speak of . . . I know not what . . . the person who gave you your kitten, and the rest of your friends in that other world. Surely you must have had more than one." 

I gazed down at where young Alfador was attacking my glove. "The kitten. In some ways, that is a long and complicated tale . . ." 

I talked for quite a while—about Gil, about Lucca, and even a bit, tentatively, about that other Schala who was my sister. I glossed over the more unpleasant parts as I came to them, for this Schala did not need to know of the horrors I had seen . . . but I remembered them all. By the time I ran out of words, young Alfador had exhausted himself and flopped down to sleep again. 

"And you left all of them behind for me," Schala said quietly. Thoughtfully. 

"I left all of them behind because it was time," I corrected. "We would all have parted ways sooner or later even had I remained in that world. You . . . merely provided an excuse which eased the strain of that parting." 

"And will you leave me behind as well?" came the plaintive question. 

"Only if you ask me to," I said. "Otherwise, I will remain with you until one of us follows the path back to the Sea of Dreams." If it came to it, I knew I truly would stay by her side until she grew old and died, no matter how it wrenched at me. 

"I am not certain that I believe you . . . but if it is not true, then it is a beautiful lie," Schala murmured. 

"And I am a facile liar," I pointed out with what gentleness I could. 

I could almost see her rueful smile as she said, "Permit me to keep my illusions for a little while, Janus." A hesitation. "It is ironic, is it not, that although being confined to my room should be far less unpleasant than that dungeon of Belthasar's, I find myself missing the touch of your hand? But you must remain on your side of the wall, and I on mine, for the same reason that you cannot tell me what your plans are. I . . . wish I were strong enough not to feel such a need to hear your voice. If this pulls apart the fabric of some plan, I will never forgive myself." 

I looked down to where young Alfador was twitching his legs, chasing mice in his dreams. "If I did not consider it safe enough, I would not be doing it." 

A soft sigh. "No, you are strong enough that you could undoubtedly restrain yourself, even in the presence of my distress. I am the one who is not—" 

"Being hard does not necessarily translate into being strong," I interrupted her gently. 

"I know. I suppose . . . you do not strike me as so very hard, but more as being like my father. The face you present to the world does not feel the same as the face you present to me, and I . . . would like to believe that the latter is more honest." 

Something twisted inside me, an all-too-familiar pain that left me with my eyes shut and my teeth clenched. _Schala, I do not deserve you._

"And now I have embarrassed you," she said with what seemed, to my ear, to be a smothered giggle. 

"Not . . . embarrassed," I said. "But I do need to think. And I suspect that I should go and check up on . . . our hosts . . . soon. And Vaie, if I can find her." 

"Vaie . . . Will that not draw exactly the type of attention you wish to avoid?" 

"Not unless Dalton has suddenly learned how to tell gargoyles apart," I said dryly. "And it's hardly surprising that the constructs never had much loyalty to him, if he's willing to punish them hideously for following orders. I'm hoping that they may be more . . . receptive . . . to me, no matter which side they think I'm on." 

"Hmm. Perhaps. I . . . must admit that I have been as guilty as everyone else of not seeing constructs as people. Your behaviour towards them has been . . . something of a revelation. Although I must admit that I cannot tell them apart either, and do not entirely understand how you manage to do so." 

"It varies from species to species," I explained. "Gargoyles' distinguishing features tend to involve the horns, wings, beak, and brow ridges, in that order of significance. But I learned that from prolonged association with those species that survived into my world's future—there are some, such as the Nu, that I can't tell apart either. It would make things a great deal easier if they were made in different colours." 

"Orange Nu?" 

"Be more creative," I suggested. "Stripes, polka dots . . . stone-patterned Nu that fade into the walls . . . crests and writing . . ." 

At last Schala dissolved into honest laughter. "Oh, dear. Can you imagine what Dalton would write on a Nu?" 

"Unfortunately, yes," I said, and Schala laughed again. 

"So can I," she admitted. "I mean, I should pity the poor Nu, but . . ." 

"I think you can afford not to waste compassion on them while they remain hypothetical," I said. "Now, try to get some rest. I'm going to talk to the constructs." 

I made my way carefully out of the palace proper and down the snow-sprinkled path to the barracks where I had eaten breakfast with Vaie and two Earthbound, half a lifetime ago. The guards at the entrance to the compound saluted me silently as I passed them, and I nodded casually in their direction. 

I stopped in the middle of the open, courtyard-like space at the center of the C-shaped spread of buildings, and looked around. Constructs that had been staring at me through the windows of the barracks above darted back inside as my eyes raked over them. 

"Do you need something, sir?" I had noticed the Mage waddling toward me, but had ignored him until he spoke. 

"I would like to speak to whoever is currently in charge," I said. 

The green construct blinked at me. "That would be . . . you, sir." 

Although his words were, in a way, gratifying, I gave him a sharp glare, and he cringed. "I meant the most senior of your fellows, not a human officer, fool." 

The Mage licked his lips with a thick tongue. "Yes, sir. Right this way." 

He led me out the far end of the courtyard to the practice fields, where an elderly heckran was squatting, watching a group of Thrashers sparring. "Sergeant Korek? He's here, sir." 

"Well enough," the heckran said. "You're dismissed." 

We didn't speak as the Mage left . . . or even for a while afterwards. I waited patiently for the heckran to break the silence, absently tracing the upper edge of the steel crescent by my side with my fingers and half-watching the sparring Thrashers. 

Several minutes crawled by before the big construct stirred. "And what do you think of our new recruits, sir? I'm afraid they're only just learning to fight under the current outside conditions." 

"They bear the stamp of their training far too clearly," I said. "All making mechanical use of the same moves . . . what will they do if they run into an opponent that doesn't think like them?" 

"You have a good eye, sir," the heckran admitted. "We've been saying for years that the training procedures need to be rethought, but getting the human officer corps to listen . . ." 

"I'll see what I can do," I said. "Although I do have other concerns right now." 

"Yes, sir. What was it that you wished to speak to me about?" 

"Gargoyles." 

"You mean Sergeant Vaie." 

I nodded, still pretending to watch the sparring Thrashers, while most of my attention was focused on what my subtler senses were detecting in the heckran's weak aura: he had been expecting me to bring up Vaie, but he was still uncomfortable. "I assumed that steps were taken to lessen her punishment—punishment which I didn't authorize," I added, and saw a subtle relaxation. "Dalton and I will have that out eventually. I don't like to see those in my service disciplined for following orders." 

"She said you would probably say something of the sort," the heckran admitted. 

"Where is she?" I asked. 

"The infirmary. She insisted on taking the whipping herself. The medic says she should be on her feet again in a day or two, but they really did mess her up—I understand that one of her wings had to be pretty much built back up from scratch." 

I muttered a curse. Magical healing on that level took even more out of the patient than it did out of the healer; Vaie really would be out of commission for a while. But at least I seemed to have the support of the other constructs . . . which might, in the end, turn out to be worth more. 

I turned to face the heckran. "Sergeant Korek, I want you to assign someone to keep an eye on the movements of Dalton and Isa, and write a report for me detailing any patterns in their actions over the next couple of days. After all, we can't protect them if we don't know where they are, can we?" 

The construct's lower jaw dropped slightly to show his fangs, his muzzle creasing into what I recognized as an unholy grin. "Orders received and understood, sir!" 

Understood on more levels than one, I suspected. "Excellent. Carry on." 

As I turned to leave, he was muttering into a communications talisman, presumably summoning those who would ultimately carry out my orders . . . which would take a few days to amount to anything. In the meanwhile, I would have to continue to play the game, while stalling as much as possible. 

* * *

I ended up spending rather less time stalling than I did conspiring with Isa to talk Dalton out of things, to my considerable surprise. This Dalton was still an impulsive idiot, and he had a distinct misogynistic streak that prevented him from listening to Isa when he really didn't want to. I was a different matter. Although he couldn't perceive my aura clearly, it obviously made him nervous . . . nervous enough that he usually gave in to me when I pressed an issue, just so that I would leave the room again. 

And so, I stopped him from requiring individual statements of loyalty from every individual adult Enlightened, with the death penalty to follow for anyone who refused . . . from trying to start a harem . . . from displacing me as the head of the Security Forces, although that one I had to argue without Isa's support. 

I should probably have expected what happened three days after my visit to Sergeant Korek. The harem incident had been a warning, after all. Nevertheless, I was startled when, sitting in the library with young Alfador asleep in my lap, an energy that raised my hackles suddenly permeated the air. I was on my feet before I even realized that I was sensing Schala's magic, deployed for defense somewhere nearby. 

I followed my subtler senses to the open door of the throne room, where servants and constructs had begun to gather. However, they melted out of the way to let me through when I made it clear that I wanted to enter the room. 

Schala, clad once more in her court robes, was standing, straight-spined, before the throne, with a shield spell deployed around her and her aura flaring with outrage. Dalton was standing on the step above her, cradling the side of his face with one hand. 

A few muttered words and a small hand gesture slammed the doors shut, the sound echoing through the room and attracting the attention of the . . . could I call them combatants? Dalton's face was definitely showing red between those fingers as he raised his head to look at me. Schala's stance eased as I came closer, although she did not turn—my aura was sufficient to provide recognition without adding a visual component. 

"Would one of you mind telling me what is going on here?" I asked in a deceptively mild tone of voice. 

"He told me to marry him," Schala said flatly, hands clenching into fists. "I pointed out that I already had a consort, but he didn't seem interested in listening." 

The door behind the throne opened at that moment, and Isa entered the room. She took in the situation at a glance, and rolled her eyes. 

"Didn't I tell you to _wait_?" she asked Dalton. 

Dalton's expression became . . . distinctly mulish. "Well, it seems to me that _someone_ here has far too many of the pieces in his own pocket." He glared at me. "He has the princess _and_ the king _and_ the flipping constructs worship him—hardly surprising, since I still think he's one of them despite everything he says." 

Isa hid her mouth with her hand, but I think that, behind it, she was smiling. "I actually rather admire his ability to get his hands on so many of those pieces . . . but you do have a point. Having the constructs working for him gives him enough of an edge over you that he shouldn't need anything else." 

Dalton scowled at her. "We're agreed, then. You're going to have to give up the princess, Janus." 

I forced a nonchalant shrug. "A consortship can only be dissolved by mutual agreement, and I doubt we'll get hers." _Especially not when the alternative is marriage to you._ "Of course, we could put Isa in a blue wig and a set of robes, and stage things so that no one who isn't already in on the lie is close enough to get a good look at her while we do the public-circus part of this, but that might easily backfire at a later time." 

Dalton's scowl deepened. "I was thinking that we could just forge her signature on some papers, rather than needing a public declaration . . ." 

Schala spoke up before I could. "You truly are stupid. Do you truly think anyone would trust that? Especially since I would deny publicly at every opportunity that the signature was mine. Furthermore, I would wed a heckran before going through any such ceremony with you! Even if Janus betrayed me, at least he is not _vile_." 

Isa was laughing openly now. "Princess, I almost think that under better circumstances, we might have become friends." 

"You too?" Dalton snarled, lunging up off the throne. "Miserable Earthbound _bitch_ —" 

I made a gesture, casting a spell that knocked him back into his seat. "You end up as the butt of jokes because you make such an attractive target of yourself, Dalton. One would think you would learn to keep your mouth shut." 

"That's 'your Majesty' to you," the blonde man spat. 

"That's odd," I replied, raising an eyebrow. "I see absolutely nothing majestic about you." 

Isa was in stitches as Dalton lunged up off the throne again, arms extended, clearly intent on strangling me. I slipped sideways, avoiding his grasp, and drove my knee into the pit of his stomach, which in turn gave me a split second to speak another spell, paralyzing him. I glanced at Belthasar's daughter and, on the side of my face that Dalton couldn't see, let the corner of my mouth quirk up. Her expression changed slightly in response, and I relaxed infinitesimally. I'd been worried that this confrontation between Dalton and myself was taking place prematurely, but it didn't look like that was at all the case . . . although that was doubtless more due to Dalton's utter idiocy and incompetence than anything I had ever done. 

Isa hiccupped, took a deep breath, and got her laughter under control. "Janus, you are magnificent! But do let him go, please. We need him for just a little while longer." 

"I must admit that I've been wondering about that— why Belthasar ever wanted anything to do with this idiot," I said, curling my fingers in the gesture that would release the paralysis spell. Off-balance, Dalton landed on his rump on the floor, and gave me a murderous look. 

"It's a little early to be telling you that," Isa said. She had been drifting across the floor in my direction ever since the beginning of her fit of laughter, and was now close enough to touch me, resting one hand on my bare upper arm and sliding the other up under my armour. Somehow, I managed not to flinch away. "Wait just a little longer, and I promise I'll explain, hmm?" Her hand crept from my arm to my shoulder to the curve of my ear, while Schala watched with a face like stone. 

Deliberately, I turned my head so that I was looking directly into Isa's eyes, raised my own hand so that I could run my knuckles lightly along her jaw, stroking. "I'll look forward to it," I said. "Although you might wish to keep in mind that I am not a patient man. Not about things like this." A lie—I had perforce trained myself to have the patience of stone, while I was waiting for my chance at Lavos—but she had no way of knowing that. 

Isa leaned up and planted a kiss on the corner of my mouth . . . and I let her do it, conscious all the while of Schala's hard gaze. "You're still going to have to let the little princess go, you know," she said. "Don't worry—I'll see that you're . . . compensated." 

"Janus isn't the sort of person who needs your 'compensation'," Schala snapped before I could say anything. 

I sighed and deliberately ran one gloved hand through Isa's short hair. "Oh, princess, how little you know me." I wrapped my arm around Belthasar's daughter and pulled her gently toward me so that our hips were touching, carefully and always without giving any sign of revulsion. 

It was more imperative now than ever that I seduce Isa. I needed to know what Belthasar had had in mind for Dalton, and why she felt the need to be so secretive about it. If the only way to tease that information out of her was to show affection, then that was what I would do. It was clear from the blank expression in his eyes that Dalton himself knew nothing. _This can't be as simple as him having pull with some faction within the palace. There has to be more than that going on._

"There has to be someone that we can trust—or at least manipulate—who is less objectionable to the princess than Dalton is," I said now. "That Earthbound, perhaps? He has no defenses against being controlled by magic, and we could put it out that the princess is trying to create closer ties between Zeal and Algetty." Inside, I damned the Flame for giving me the idea . . . but it was so magnificently plausible that I just had to use it, despite the hurt in Schala's eyes and the way my stomach was churning. 

"Oh, that's _beautiful_ ," Isa said, eyes sparkling. "And to save the Earthbound's life, she might even do it willingly . . . mightn't you, princess?" 

Schala gave me a pleading look, but I turned my gaze away, even though it tore at me. _Forgive me,_ I begged . . . but only inside my mind, where no one but I could hear. 

"If the alternative is having you kill someone who fought by my side—kill him for no reason but to hurt me—then yes, I will do as you say," Schala said slowly. 

"And while all this is going on, what am _I_ supposed to do?" Dalton snapped, looking peeved. "Belthasar promised—" 

"That you would rule Zeal," Isa said. "And so you will." 

"It's no good if I'm just doing it as some kind of . . . of puppetmaster," the blonde man grumbled. 

"And you won't be," Isa said soothingly. "I told you, the plan isn't complete yet." 

I filed that away for future reference—why promise the throne to Dalton now unless it was integral to Belthasar's plan? 

"Grrmph." Dalton gave me a cold glare. "And I'd bet it never will be, while we have that _thing_ working with us. This was supposed to be a revenge against _him_ , or had you forgotten that bit?" 

"It was supposed to be vengeance against _Zeal_ ," Isa corrected. "And for that purpose, marrying their princess off to someone they consider vermin is magnificent. I wish I had thought of it myself." She was playing with my hair—I just hoped she didn't manage to pull any of it out. 

"We are going to have to stage this very carefully," I said. "We need as many people to see the ceremony in person as possible. The first step, however, is going to be getting the Earthbound out of the dungeons, cleaned up, and apprised of his part in all this." 

"A good point," Isa admitted. "We can't have the royal bridegroom look like he's come here straight from Algetty." She giggled, the sound setting my teeth on edge. 

Schala was staring at us both with a blank expression on her face, which might mean that she was in shock . . . or that she'd realized part of what I was trying to do. I hoped it was the latter. 

"Well, then," Isa was saying. "I'll have the princess escorted back to her room, and then we'll go and fetch the Earthbound, shall we?" 

I had hoped to go down to the dungeons alone, but in the end it turned out to be just as well that I couldn't: I had misremembered where they were, and would have had to ask for directions. Hardly surprising, since I think Ruan and his construct escort had been the first people down there in a century. The cleaning spells had faded, leaving cobwebs in the corners, and somewhere there must have been a crack in the foundations of the island that went all the way out to the sea, because the cells on one side of the corridor were extremely damp, with beads of water trickling down the walls and accumulating in the low spots. I made a mental note to order the first construct I came across to have that checked out before it flooded the cellars. 

Naturally, Ruan was in the very last cell, pacing restlessly behind the recently-renewed forcefield spell that barred the entrance. He looked up as we were approaching, his eyes reflecting the weak etheric light from the hall. He needed a shave rather badly, but the cleaning spells on the uniform he had appropriated were otherwise keeping up with the filth to which he was being exposed. His gaze swept over Isa, then myself, and very deliberately, he turned his back on us. 

I gave the forcefield spell a quick examination, then grabbed a bit of it and pulled, making it dissolve in a shower of sparks. Ruan didn't move. 

"I'm afraid that if your plan was to stay in there for the rest of your natural life, you're going to need to change it," I said harshly. "Now come on." 

"You expect me to come tamely to my own execution?" Ruan still didn't bother to turn. "Sorry, but you're going to have to carry me. Or drag me." He sounded almost cheerful at the prospect. 

"We're not going to kill you just yet," I said. "Although I must admit, you're tempting me rather sorely. And if you don't come on your own, I have a control spell I've been meaning to try out." And so I had: I'd found it in the library a couple of days ago. "I suspect you would find dragging less unpleasant." 

Now he did turn. "You son-of-a— Is magic your answer to everything?" 

I smiled at him, baring my fangs. "I am the ultimate product of Lavos' corruption of humanity—what other kind of answer do you expect me to suggest?" _Come on, fool—you should know that that's a lie. You've seen me with a weapon in my hands, so you should be aware that I'm not bothered by getting them dirty._

Ruan spat on the floor, but he also began to walk toward the door of the cell. Emerging into the corridor, he said sarcastically, "I suppose you want me to walk between the two of you?" 

"Ahead of us will be fine," I said dryly, motioning him on past. 

"What if I don't trust you at my back?" 

"I don't believe we were offering you a choice," Isa said. "Get moving. And keep your hands where we can see him." 

"You know, Janus, I think I liked your last girlfriend better." 

I didn't dignify that with a reply. 

Our trip up into the palace proper was punctuated with the occasional "turn right" or "through that door" from Isa, which ended up placing us in the guest quarters. Once we had reached the room she had chosen, she ordered a couple of serving constructs to clean up poor Ruan . . . although the instructions she gave were a great deal more precise than that, and their nature such that I became rapidly convinced that when she was a little girl, she hadn't had nearly enough time to spend playing with dolls to satisfy her. Ruan's expression became more and more peculiar as she rattled on, an outlet which I envied him, since it was becoming difficult for me to maintain my own poker face. 

"Careful," I said at last, cutting off a discussion about perfume. "We need to avoid obscuring the fact that he's from Algetty. Putting him in civilized clothing is one thing, but making him look like he indulges in the worst excesses of the nobility is quite another. We can't afford to make this look like a joke." 

Isa . . . I think the best word is "pouted", but with a certain artificiality to the expression that suggested it was just as premeditated as her flirting. "Oh, all right. Just get him cleaned up and shaved, find him a dress uniform, and do something about his hair," she added to the constructs, who nodded. "And damn you for spoiling my fun," she added to me. 

I shrugged. "We're not here for fun." 

She rolled her eyes. "I'm beginning to think that Dalton has one good quality after all: _he_ knows how to have a good time." 

"If that's your way of telling me that I'm too serious, I already know," I said dryly. After all, that had been one of Flea's favourite criticisms of me. And Lucca's too, now that I thought about it. 

"Hmph. Well, I'd better go and start planning the circus. I'm hoping we'll be able to set it up for three or four days from now." 

I nodded, but behind my emotionless facade, I was thinking about delaying tactics. After all, three days wasn't much time . . . _I need that damned report!_

It was waiting for me when I got back to my room. Someone had gone all-out, and bound it in dark, reddish leather, the colour of drying blood, rather than just presenting it in the more usual manner as a stack of sheets of paper, or even a verbal recording talisman. I picked it up and carried it over to the bed, telling myself that the impression of warmth I was receiving through my gloves was purely psychosomatic and the thin volume bore no resemblance whatsoever to a fresh corpse. 

Whoever Korek had assigned had been thorough. Not only had Dalton and Isa's movements been set down in minute-by-minute detail, but the layers of assorted protective spells—their own and others'—fitted over the areas in which they spent the most time had been diagrammed out in detail. All of it was embedded carefully in language suggesting that the compiler of the report believed his job was to located any security holes so that they might be corrected. Nevertheless, once I had memorized the sections of the report that I wanted, I muttered a spell that caused the ink to evaporate from the pages, leaving me with a handsomely bound blank book. 

Leaving evidence behind would just be borrowing trouble. 

I sat so long in unmoving silence with the book in my lap that young Alfador _mrowwp_ ed and began to paw at my leg, apparently to see whether or not I was still alive. I sighed and stroked him. 

"We may be leaving here soon," I told him, and received an inscrutable feline blink in return. "Unless you had rather stay, that is." 

He crawled into my lap and curled up, which I interpreted as a _no_ . . . or perhaps more accurately, _I go where you go._

I went over everything in my head repeatedly, until I had it all laid out in order like a spell diagram. Unfortunately, the first step had to be performed just so and with the right person . . . who was busy right now. I would need to wait until she began to find the business of organizing a royal wedding unutterably tedious, which I expected would take a few hours yet. 

And I still didn't know why she needed Dalton. That bothered me. I wouldn't be able to convince her to do without him until I could figure it out and find a suitable substitute for whatever role he was supposed to fill. 

I left my room shortly before midnight and went stalking along the halls. The two Lashers guarding Schala's door saluted me as I passed, and I nodded back to them. I met few others on my way up to the third floor: although there was no _official_ curfew, Dalton's unpredictability was making people nervous, and most of them kept to themselves. 

I found Isa standing on the very same third-floor balcony where the report had suggested I would probably find her, the one that faced the continent and Algetty, although even during a clear day the Earthbound settlement wouldn't actually have been visible from there. 

"Do you regret leaving?" I asked her, and watched her shoulders tense, then relax as she recognized my voice, or possibly my aura. _I suppose that means she trusts me not to knife her from behind. How . . . cute._

"Regret leaving Algetty?" Isa snorted. "That filthy hole in the ground? Not in the least. My only regret is that the people I knew there can't see me now." 

I took another two steps forward, coming to a stop beside her and placing my hand on top of hers where it rested on the railing. "Why did you stay there so long, then, if you hated it? As an operant mage, you could just have walked up to a Skyway and left at any time." 

"I suppose I'm simply not as . . . audacious . . . as you." Sighing, Isa leaned in against my shoulder, and I forced myself not to move. "Besides, I would have turned up on the Floating Islands _dressed_ like an Earthbound—or stark naked—which would have immediately told anyone I met where it was that I came from. I didn't want to be humiliated that way." 

"You could have staged something," I said. "There have always been occasional Enlightened criminals." 

Isa chuckled. "Are you suggesting I should have claimed to have been robbed of my clothes? Well . . . I suppose it _might_ have worked. I had always thought that Zeal was more careful about tracking people, but now that I've seen what passes for security and organization here . . ." She shook her head. "In any case, if my father had ever spotted me, my imposture would have been over." 

"I'm not so sure about that. What could he have said without admitting his relationship to you? Your auras are quite similar, and I suspect the last thing he would have wanted to do is draw attention to the resemblance." 

"My brother would be terribly insulted if you suggested our father was anything less than proud of either of us," Isa observed to the night. 

"And you aren't?" 

"I lost my illusions about that a long time ago." 

"And yet you continue to go along with this plan of his." I was afraid that I might be saying too much too soon, but at the same time, just talking about her childhood would accomplish nothing. 

"What else am I supposed to do?" came the soft question. "If I stop now, I hardly think your jealous little princess will suddenly welcome me into the family of Enlightened. And Dalton . . ." 

"Schala doesn't have the spine to ostracize anyone," I said—half truth, half lie. Schala was too immensely forgiving to reject anyone, no matter how good the reason. 

"Her father does, though." 

"Until we find Melchior, the king is going to remain dead," I pointed out. "And we needn't search for him with any degree of enthusiasm." 

"The old man is dangerous," Isa said flatly. "Perhaps you haven't been here long enough to notice, but regardless of how he got his title, his _hobby_ is weapons design, and he's quite good at it. We can't afford to leave him at large." 

"Until we figure out where he went, there's nothing we can do anyway," I said. "Perhaps we should put Dalton on it." 

Isa gave me a suspicious look. "Was that supposed to be a joke? Dalton would have a hard time finding his own nose if you put his hand on his face!" 

"Does that mean you have some specific use for an idiot?" I asked, doing my best to keep the question idle. Nevertheless, she stiffened. 

"Perhaps," came the guarded answer. 

"Because if so, there are plenty of less-obnoxious ones available," I pointed out. 

A snort. "You really do hate him, don't you?" 

"'Hate' is too strong a word," I replied. "He annoys me, and I would shed no tears if he were to fall over dead, but killing him would be more like breaking the neck of a rat than battling against a mortal enemy. Besides, who's to say that whatever it is you need done requires an idiot at all, instead of just someone with the correct . . . motivation?" 

The rapid shift of subjects almost tricked her into answering. "No one in his right mind would allow the Flame to— " She stopped in mid-sentence and shook her head. "You are altogether too curious about this." 

The Flame. On the side away from her, my fingers traced the familiar top edge of the steel crescent. Dalton and the Flame. 

I shrugged. "If there is one thing I do hate, it would be Lavos and all its works. Including the Flame. Your father never had a proper appreciation for just how dangerous that alien _thing_ is. And now you plan to . . . what, make Dalton the Arbiter?" 

"That would be a waste," Isa said, sounding amused . . . but I thought I also caught a hint of disquiet in her voice. I was close, then, but not completely on target. 

The Frozen Flame . . . container for Lavos' Dream . . . 

_Container._

She couldn't— _Belthasar_ couldn't have seriously intended to—did they have any idea what would happen if that _thing_ managed to get a human body as well as the Dreamstone? 

How was I supposed to react to this? Sticking a knife into Isa's back right here and now was suggesting itself as a distinct possibility, but if I missed, things could get very messy very quickly. Killing Dalton would be useless: all she would have to do to compensate would be to find herself another idiot, as I had foolishly suggested. Stalling for time offered no benefit that I could see. That left persuasion. 

"You're going to give it a body with deficient neural circuitry?" I said in my driest tone of voice. "It might not like that very much." 

Isa laughed. It was the first real laugh I'd heard from her, I think. "I'd assumed it would operate his body more as an extension, not move into it exclusively. And besides, who's to say that it couldn't repair his deficiencies? The Frozen Flame has immense power, after all." 

"Immense, _dangerous_ power," I said harshly. "Are you truly willing to risk the entire world just for your father's revenge?" 

"That's a ridiculous exaggeration." 

"On the contrary," I said grimly. "It is the truth. The exact truth. When we found your father, inside Lavos, I asked him what he intended to do with the power he had gained from it. Do you know what his answer was?" 

A shrug. "To throw down Zeal, I would assume." But she was frowning, and didn't seem surprised when I shook my head. 

"He spoke of harvesting genetic material on behalf of Lavoskind. The Frozen Flame is Lavos' Dream—Lavos distilled, if you will—and I have seen the future that Lavos created, given the opportunity. Shall I show it to you, too? So that you can make an informed decision on what you are about to do?" 

A mute headshake. Her frown had deepened. I had shaken her, I could see that. 

"You could be lying," she said slowly. 

"And you could question the Earthbound," I replied. "He was there, and heard everything your father said—everything I said as well, for that matter. Surely you know how to cast a simple truth spell." 

Isa licked her lips nervously. It appeared that I had hooked my fish, so to speak. "I thought . . . but if it was strong enough to corrupt my father's mind, you might be right: it might be too dangerous." A hesitation. "What do I do?" 

"Well, the first thing you do is _stop_ ," I said evenly. "Drop all plans of doing anything with the Frozen Flame. Ideally, I would seal off the Hall of the Flame as well, to ensure that no one does anything foolish. Then you release Schala. If necessary, I'll intercede for you with her, although whether she still trusts me as much as she once did is . . . questionable. Then we go looking for Melchior. Eventually, you can step quietly into a position with the security forces—I'm going to need to purge the human officer corps completely, I think, to get rid of Dalton's cronies, so there will be plenty of openings— and live openly as what you are, without having to pretend to be an Earthbound." 

A soft sigh. "Not fighting to complete anyone's damned _plan_ anymore . . . that sounds almost like a dream." The expression on her face was exhausted and . . . vulnerable. 

"I've seen people with strong enough dreams bring them to fruition before, even though they seemed impossible," I said. I wasn't about to mention that strong enough nightmares had many of the same properties. 

Isa turned to face outward into the night again. "Still, I don't . . . All my life, I've been following the pattern my father set out for me. Without him to show me the way forward, I don't really know what I would do with myself." 

I chuckled. "I admit, I've been struggling with that myself for quite a long time: what to do with myself after my life's obsession was no longer there. And yet, I've found that there's always something more to do, always a path forward . . . although I sometimes seem to be treading it in the dark." I stopped abruptly. I hadn't meant to give her that much honesty, but she . . . was treating me almost the way that Schala did. 

"I'm starting to see why your little princess adores you so," Belthasar's daughter said. A pause, then a sigh. "I suppose we should get started. I'm going to be glad when this is over." 

I had succeeded beyond my wildest dreams in seducing our chief adversary over to our side . . . but if anything, that made me more uncomfortable than I had been when I had come up here. Nothing was ever this easy . . . which meant that something was going to go wrong, and there were a _lot_ of possibilities for disaster lurking in the wings, most of them centering around either Dalton or the Flame, and I couldn't help ruminating on the matter as Isa followed me down the stairs. 

Dalton should be in his bedroom, up on the fourth floor. I sent the two Lashers who were guarding Schala's door up to keep an eye on him, and they obeyed with what I interpreted as pleasure, although it was difficult to tell for certain through their masks. 

Isa was standing at my shoulder as I knocked gently on that door, hopefully not so loudly that I would wake Schala if she actually had managed to get to sleep. The sound of footsteps on the other side a moment later suggested that she hadn't. 

The door opened slowly, and Schala blinked at us. "Janus, what—" Then she noticed Isa standing behind me, and her eyes narrowed slightly. "What are _you_ doing here?" 

"Trying to make amends," Belthasar's daughter replied, to my surprise. "I've come to the conclusion that I've misunderstood the situation quite badly, and that my father may have been . . . going mad, towards the end. I want to apologize for everything that I've done." 

Schala glanced at me, and I nodded just the least little bit. While her mouth remained in the same firm line, warmth flowered in her eyes. 

"Does this mean I am free to go?" the princess asked evenly. 

"It means that I have no right to prevent you from doing whatever you want," Isa said. "You are the rightful ruler of Zeal in your father's absence, not I or Dalton." Isa swallowed, but her voice didn't waver. "What are your commands, your Highness?" 

But before Schala could say anything, we were interrupted by a Lancer who ran full-tilt through the door from the great hall, too quickly to stop before he hit the wall of the corridor. He'd obviously been prepared for that, though, because he used his arms to absorb the shock, bounced off, blinked behind his mask, and turned to face me, all in a quick, coordinated series of movements that might even suggest he'd practiced the manoeuvre. 

"Sir, Dalton is not in his room." 

I said something vile. "Well, then, find him!" 

The problem with Dalton being at large was that the human cockroach was so damned _stupid_ that he might try to do almost anything, and a rational person wasn't going to be able to predict his actions. 

"Sergeant Korek has already ordered a search, sir. I was sent as a messenger because you don't carry a communications talisman." 

I was only half-listening. I might not be able to _predict_ Dalton as such, but most of the actions he might decide to take weren't worth worrying about. The dangerous targets were . . . Schala, of course, but she was right there in front of me. And . . . 

The Flame. 

"I want a detachment of guards at the Hall of the Flame," I said to the Lasher. "Get Korek on it." Schala's mouth, I noted, had flattened itself into that thin line again. "And since I can't be in two places at once, you and I are going there too," I told her, and received a tight nod. 

It was an odd little procession: Isa leading the way, and then Schala and I, side-by-side, her hand resting lightly on my arm, with the Lasher trailing behind and talking into his equipment. 

There were no guards outside the Hall of the Flame, not even a pair of Nu. This Zeal had, until recently, been a very peaceful place, without the salting of Lavos-induced paranoia that my home had been subject to, and recent events seemed not to have penetrated deeply enough yet to change that culture. I nodded to Isa, who swung the doors open, and inside there was . . . 

. . . nothing. Etheric lighting gleamed from stone and metal, but the Flame just wasn't there. 

I rounded on Belthasar's daughter. "This _is_ where you put the damned thing, isn't it?" 

She nodded. "Dalton had me dump it right back into its . . . display case, or whatever that thing is supposed to be." She nodded in the direction of the cagelike construction at the far end of the room. 

"Then we have to assume that he took it," I said grimly. "Probably at the Flame's own instigation." I turned to the Lasher. "Change of plans. We're going to have to search the entire Palace." 

"I'll get everyone right on it, sir." 

It wasn't the Lasher who spoke. I turned and discovered a familiar gargoyle standing behind us. 

"You should still be in the infirmary," I said severely. 

Vaie's beak dropped slightly open in a grin. "It's good to see you too, sir. The healers cleared me to leave earlier today. I'm not in any shape to fight, I admit, but running a search doesn't require that much physical effort. Besides, someone had to bring you this." She held out a small talisman of the type she and the other constructs wore on their belts. "We can't keep sending runners after you every time there's some kind of news." 

I scowled . . . but I did take it, clipping it to the chain that supported the steel crescent riding at my hip. "The activation sequence?" I asked tersely. 

"Squeeze the edges in towards the center," Vaie said, her grin widening slightly. I nodded. With a dozen different species using the damned things, the key had to be simple. 

A voice came from the gargoyle's amulet, speaking in the clipped military code that I hadn't had a chance to learn yet, and she ducked her head slightly to listen. "That was the leader of the group sweeping the fourth floor, sir. Dalton isn't up there." 

"With the Frozen Flame gone, I doubt we can expect to find him still inside the building," I said. "If we have anyone in Kajar and Enhasa, get them moving as well. If we don't find him soon, I may have to go to the End of Time and trace him that way. Leaving the Flame in his hands for any length of time is risky." 

Vaie's grin went away. "Yes, sir." She squeezed her amulet again, and was soon speaking to a sleepy-sounding individual. "They'll search Kajar from the center outwards. Now for Enhasa . . ." She squeezed the amulet again and spoke into it. There was no reply. With a gradually deepening frown, the gargoyle tried it several more times. "No one's answering in Enhasa, sir. Of course, we only have one squad there, and some of them can be difficult to wake up . . ." 

A familiar laugh wafted up from her amulet. "Sorry, but it isn't that simple." 

"What do you want, Dalton?" I snapped before Vaie could say anything. 

"Janus? I was hoping you would be there. You have ten minutes to bring my bride to me. After that, I'm going to start killing these dreaming idiots, like I did that traitorous security squad." 

I muttered a curse. I had always seen the Enhasans as a waste of space, but I knew that Schala would be unwilling to let them die. "We'll be there." 

Another laugh. "I'll be looking forward to it." 

I turned to Vaie. "Mobilize everyone you can. Enhasa isn't that far away. If you get there more than ten minutes after us, I'll make you wish Dalton were back in charge." 

"Yes, sir." 

Schala, to my surprise, was pulling her outer robe off. Underneath it, she wore the clothing and armour she had chosen for our expedition against Lavos. 

"I am beginning to understand why you so adamantly refuse to put aside your protections," she said with a shadow of a smile. "I am also beginning to wish that I knew how to use a weapon. It is the last thing he would expect." 

My eyes narrowed. If she was willing . . . "One moment." 

It took some rummaging through the pocket dimension that normally held my scythe to turn it up, but after a couple of minutes, my hand closed around the slender ebony handle of the dagger Caeron had given me so long ago, last used for torturing Belthasar's hapless son. 

"Conceal it as best you can for now," I told Schala as I passed it to her. "And if you need to use it, try to plant it somewhere that will keep him from getting up again." 

She examined the blade, then nodded and tucked it through the back of her belt. When I raised an eyebrow, she said defensively, "I've seen constructs carrying them like that, and anyway, my back is probably the last part of me that Dalton will be interested in looking at." 

"If I was surprised, it was because you did the right thing in an unfamiliar situation without even seeming to have to think about it very much," I said, with the least hint of a smile. "That isn't a common skill. Now, come here. We only have about half of Dalton's ten minutes left." 

Isa stared as I lifted Schala into my arms. Vaie was too busy talking into her talisman. And then I spoke a teleportation spell, and the world blinked. 

The Dreaming City of Enhasa has its own peculiar aura, somehow compounded from the energies of whichever residents happen to be asleep at the time—which is generally most of them. They wake briefly, for an hour or two a day, to eat and drink and tend themselves, then go back to sleep. 

Even as a child, I had been disgusted at their retreat from the world. The dreamers, from my point of view, might as well have been dead. Frolicking with dream-creatures accomplishes nothing. 

Standing outside the main building complex at the center of the city, I could still feel that collective aura, but it was ragged. Many of the sleepers were awake, and I doubted it was by choice. 

"This is not right," Schala observed as I let her down. Then she shook her head. "We have little time left. Where do you think Dalton is hiding?" 

"Near his hostages," I said. "All we have to do is find our way to the largest collection of auras. He'll be there." It would have been easier if I could have spotted the cockroach's aura in particular, of course, but it just wasn't strong enough to show clearly among all the others. 

It turned out that we needn't have worried. When I threw open the door to the main complex, Dalton was right in front of me, standing where he could block the staircases down from the building's higher levels. He was holding the Frozen Flame under one arm, and he smirked at me as I stepped inside, followed by Schala. Several heads poked out over the edges of the upper levels, then withdrew again, although I couldn't be sure whether that was due to Dalton's presence or my aura. 

I stopped, but Schala took three more steps, which placed her in front of me. Chin high, she said, "I am here. Now you will tell me why a traitor wished to see me." 

Dalton blinked. His eyes, I noted, were slightly glazed, and apparently he wasn't prepared for such a deviation from whatever script for this scene he had developed inside his head. 

"I need a reason to see my promised wife?" he managed at last. 

"I have never been your promised anything!" Schala snapped. "Even if I were not content with my consort, I would not marry you even if you were the last man on the planet!" 

Another blink. "Not my . . . ? But of course you are! Janus has clouded your mind, that's all. Once he dies, the spell will be removed, and you'll remember." 

"Remember? As I _remember_ you lovingly breaking my fingers one by one, and then giving me over to Belthasar?" Rustling sounds and murmurs from up above, quickly hushed. "But even if you were to wipe my memory entirely clean, I would still recognize you as slime in human form." 

The Flame pulsed with red light, and Dalton's entire face glazed over with non-expression. I muttered a curse. "I don't think talking to him is going to work," I said. "I would guess that the Flame is manipulating his perception of reality." I just hoped it didn't start trying to manipulate things _outside_ Dalton's head. Even cut off from Lavos, the Flame had massive power, and the thing that had mostly saved us up to this point was that it seemed to be extraordinarily bad in figuring out how to apply it. _Is that why it needs an Arbiter? To provide it with the intelligence and understanding that it lacks?_ If so, Dalton was the worst possible choice for it . . . and could end up being disastrous for us as well, because the human cockroach wasn't bright enough to understand some of the things he might end up tampering with. 

_You know, Magus, the opponents that frighten me most aren't the ones who are nearly as good as I am. No, the ones that scare me are the ones who have no idea what they're doing, because I can't predict them, and that means they might get lucky._ How long ago had it been that Slash had said that to me? It felt like centuries. 

My attention snapped back to the present as Dalton reached for Schala's hand. I grabbed his wrist and forced his arm to a stop before he could touch her . . . just barely. Dalton's edge over me in raw strength was slight, but very real, and my hand was shaking with the effort by the time he slackened the pressure. 

"Stubborn," the blonde man muttered. "Guess I'll have to give you something to keep you busy." 

His hand went to his belt, in an all-too-familiar gesture, and I began casting Dark Matter even before he'd had a chance to open the doorway into the golems' world. My spell slammed into the opening that appeared behind him and destroyed the golem before it could emerge, but even when the dimensional gap had shut again, there was still something wrong: sounds of agitation on the upper levels, people scrabbling frantically to get away from something . . . then a scream pierced the air, and as though that one sound had uncorked a bottle, I could hear people screaming and crying and casting feeble spells. 

Dalton began to laugh. "Did you honestly think I was only going to summon _one_?" Pinpoints of red light danced in his eyes. 

Schala grabbed my arm. "Janus, please—those creatures are going to kill everyone if they are not stopped! Please, save my people. I can protect myself against Dalton for a time, even if he does have the Flame." 

I muttered a curse. Given my choice, I would have left the foolish dreamers of Enhasa to be slaughtered, but for Schala's sake I would help them, even though it meant having to leave her side. 

"Build a shield and don't come out," I said, and she nodded. I pushed off the ground and floated up as Dalton watched, apparently highly amused by the byplay. 

It was worse than I had expected. I had expected two or three additional golems, but there were at least a dozen of the creatures, and there were several people already down. From the looks of it, some of them wouldn't be getting up again, either. Most of those still alive were cowering in corners. Few of them were shielded, and I doubted that those who weren't were clear- minded enough to put a spell together. 

I managed to get a decent alignment on one golem and take it down (along with the bookcase behind it), but while I was doing it, two other Enhasans got flattened. This was not going to work: I simply couldn't protect this many shifting, unshielded groups of people from this many enemies who were mixed in with them, not when destroying a golem required several seconds of my undivided attention. A misdirected area spell might even kill some of the Enhasans that Schala had asked me to save. I needed to be in ten places at once—and teleportation isn't fast enough to provide even the illusion of —or I needed allies, and no one here except Schala was likely to be of any use. 

My gaze skimmed over several corpses that the golems had left behind. _Unless . . ._

I was a bad idea, and I knew it. Technically, there was no law against necromancy in Zeal, but even there, it was a practice looked upon with hatred and what I can only describe as superstition. Humans seem to have a great deal of trouble divorcing people's corpses from the memory of the people themselves. 

Another Enhasan died screaming, and I swore aloud and made my decision. I could always hope that, when this was over, the damned fools would all just go back to sleep . . . 

It wasn't even as complex as the zombie spell I had used to throw the Porreans out of Guardia, all those years ago. I didn't need the infectious properties, or the ability to pass them off to another controller—just a bunch of meat shields that would keep the golems occupied for a few seconds while I destroyed them one-by-one. And so I spoke and pointed, and the dead rose and threw themselves at the golems. 

The screams of the Enhasans changed to shouts of protest. One man threw himself at a revenant and grabbed it by the sleeve, calling to it to wait, then went white and silent upon looking into the equally white and silent face of what had once been a woman. A couple of the living vomited. I ignored the byplay and began flinging magic at one of the golems, catching a few of the revenants in the process . . . but that hardly mattered. 

I let off a barrage of precisely targeted spells. They weren't as powerful as the area-clearing types I normally use, so I needed longer for each golem than I would have if the damned Enhasans hadn't still been too close, but I had taken out two and was nearly done with a third when a flash of bright light from below distracted me. 

I looked down, then had to dodge quickly back to avoid an erupting column of light. I had only caught a glimpse, a tableau, but it was obvious what had happened: Dalton had invoked the Frozen Flame against Schala's barrier—or perhaps the Flame had invoked Dalton—and Schala had produced the Sun Stone from somewhere as it crumpled. However, the Stone was flickering badly. It had little left to give—one more spell, perhaps, and then . . . 

I muttered a curse and dropped to the floor between Schala and Dalton as the light from the Sun Stone died away. Dalton was holding the Flame up in front of him like a shield. His eyes, I noted, were glowing red. 

"Janus, the golems—" 

"Are under control," I snapped. "Fortunately, they aren't very bright . . . and they'll be easier to clean up with their master out of the way." I left it unsaid that Dalton had just breached her most potent available defense, leaving her effectively unprotected, and I wasn't going to allow that. She was intelligent enough to figure that out on her own. 

Unfortunately, the Flame apparently was too. 

"So you think you can protect her?" Technically, it was Dalton who was speaking, but his voice had an odd sort of echo effect to it, and I suspected that they weren't really his words. "Always so confident. If only you would give in to me and become my Arbiter, there would be nothing that we could not accomplish together . . ." 

So this was all about me again. It was enough to make me grind my teeth. A month ago, I had never been anywhere near this world, and now I was the pivotal point of the strategy of every would-be revolutionary on the planet? It would have been laughable if it hadn't been so annoying. 

"I'm more likely to dissolve you in an acid bath," I growled, trying to think. Getting the Flame away from Dalton struck me as the first step toward defusing this situation, but the way he was holding it made it difficult to see how— 

Suddenly all the lights went out, and I swore vilely. A trick? Some illusion of the Flame's? I narrowed my eyes. If it was an illusion, concentration should enable me to see the underlying struct— 

Something struck me between the shoulderblades and pitched me forward onto a floor that was evidently still there even though I couldn't see it. Reflexes caused me to automatically roll to the left, away from where my attacker would expect me to be, before I conjured a light—a risky act, since it would indicate my position, but I needed some idea of what I was facing. 

I picked myself up first, then called the illumination into being on the far side of my original position, telling myself sternly that I was _not_ being paranoid. 

Despite the absence of light or sound, it appeared that I was still in Enhasa . . . perhaps. The dimensions of the room and placement of immovable features like staircases appeared to be the same, but there was no sign that this place had ever been furnished, and outside the windows, there was only darkness. I would have liked to check the door behind me, but I didn't dare turn, because I was very obviously not alone. 

The creature that crouched opposite me, on the stairs that Dalton had previously been blocking, looked like a less civilized version of Lavos' humanoid mote, naked (and fortunately sexless). Its three-fingered hands were . . . raised in a defensive gesture? 

That this was an illusion, I had no doubt, but what lay underneath it? Enhasa in its normal state, obviously, and the creature was . . . 

I felt suddenly cold as I realized what I might have done if I had unthinkingly struck back against my attacker. There had only been one person standing behind me when the lights went out. And what was _she_ seeing, I wondered, that had led her to feel so threatened that she would attack me physically? Or had that been another illusion, designed to get me to strike and kill? 

Suddenly, there was a harsh, choked cry from somewhere. I looked at the illusory creature on the stairs, but it appeared to be just as startled as I. Hoping that I would enjoy at least a few seconds of safety, I turned my attention to the illusion itself, finding its threads with my subtler senses and tearing them apart. It was well-built, better than the Frozen Flame had ever managed before, and I had to break quite a number of individual threads before the whole started to unravel and light flooded in. 

I was indeed still in Enhasa's central building, and the creature that had been stalking me, bereft of its disguise, was indeed Schala. The scream appeared to have been Dalton. He'd somehow lost the arm that had been clutching the Flame just above the elbow, and the severed appendage was flopping on the floor in a weirdly boneless manner that reminded me of a landed fish—perhaps the Flame, which lay about a foot away from it, was still trying to control it—but there seemed to be very little blood, all things considered. Dalton himself appeared to be one- half of a messy wrestling match going on in a corner, both participants moving fast and smashing into the walls with a force that was making Schala wince. 

I couldn't make out who the other person involved was at first. I could distinguish the uniform of the Security Forces, but the figure's face was turned away most of the time, and blurred by movement the rest. Then there was a brief instant where the figures were frozen in profile, and I was able to distinguish Isa's face—embarrassing, since I should have at least been able to make a guess based on the short hair. But then, I hadn't expected her to be here so soon. There was no sign of Vaie or the troops, so when had Belthasar's daughter arrived, and how? 

I shook my head. Isa and Dalton were not my main concern at the moment. The Flame was, and I really didn't like what it was doing with that disembodied arm. I needed to get it contained . . . somehow, which meant that I needed someone who knew more than I did about the various classes of shielding spell. 

I teleported myself across the room to the staircase. Schala flinched in surprise. Her nerves had to be completely raw. 

"I didn't mean to startle you," I said as gently as I could manage, "but we need to do something about the Flame while Dalton's occupied, and it's safer if you're the one to handle it. My energies are too compatible with the damned thing." 

Schala frowned. "What do you need me to do?" 

"Clamp wards around it until that arm stops twitching," I said. "Try to keep any of its influence from getting in or out. Fortunately, it doesn't seem to be too bright when it doesn't have access to a human partner. I'll be mopping up the golems." 

"I understand." The words were accompanied by a visible swallow, however. I could understand her nervousness: the Flame was a dangerous and slippery creature. 

I leaped into the air, knowing that staying there to comfort her would be the wrong thing to do in the long run, and gazed down on the upper levels, only to discover that most of my original revenants were gone, squashed by the golems, and the living were beginning to suffer again. Well, there were more corpses now, and raising them didn't require much energy. Soon, the golems were occupied again, and I was picking them off. Three . . . eight . . . ten . . . There was one golem left when I heard another scream from below . . . although this time, the timbre suggested rage more than pain. Grimly, I forced myself to finish the last monster off before dropping down again. 

Dalton had fought his way free of Isa, although not without cost: a long cut striped his face from the right eyebrow down almost to the chin, and the eye on that side hadn't been spared. If he lived—which I didn't intend to let him do—he was going to be wearing an eyepatch, just like the Dalton I remembered from childhood. Even Zealish magical medicine could never restore that red ruin. Right now, he was glaring at the two people between himself and the Flame with his remaining eye. 

Schala and Isa stood shoulder-to-shoulder, any sign of animosity or even nervousness between them gone. They both held knives, and Isa's was red where she had blooded it. Their expressions were grim and intent. 

My fight with the golems had shifted me around so that I had landed on the second step of the staircase at right angles to the building's entrance, in front of which Schala and Isa were standing. Dalton was currently sidling to the right, presumably trying to find a position where he could keep all three of us in view. 

I wasn't going to give him the chance. 

Unfortunately, the human cockroach still had uncannily good luck, and he managed to dodge the razor edge of the ice spell I flung (chosen because ice tends to be restrained in terms of causing collateral damage). I only succeeded in nicking his face below that ruined eye, and was disturbed at the way that the wound bled only momentarily before drying up. It wasn't complete high-speed regeneration, but it was dangerous enough. However, his dodging had the effect of moving him back toward the flight of stairs opposite the door . . . which gave me an idea. 

I let loose with a barrage of ice, aiming carefully. None of it actually hit Dalton, but it kept him busy dodging and moved him back toward the stairs without him noticing . . . and when he did figure it out, it was too late. 

The dead were there. 

I hadn't bothered canceling the spell on the revenants yet, so calling them to the staircase had been easy, and dead hands were stronger than living. The corpse that grabbed hold of Dalton's hair had been a dainty girl of perhaps seventeen, but he could not break its grip as it yanked him in toward its fellows, which grabbed at his arms and legs and torso until he couldn't move at all. 

His panting and my footfalls were the only sounds in the room as I walked toward him and stopped directly in front of him. Slowly, looking him directly in the eye, I raised my right hand to grip his throat. 

"Any last words?" I asked, with a fang-baring smile. 

"You can't seriously be intending to kill me in cold blood," Dalton said, a blusterer to the last. 

"I beg to differ," I said evenly. "After all, _someone_ would have to do it. I'm just saving the executioner the trouble. After all this, there is no way you could possibly hope to wiggle out of a charge of high treason." And even if I was wrong about that . . . well, that old saw about it being easier to ask forgiveness than permission exists for a reason. 

Dalton just goggled at me. With a mental shrug, I closed my hand, gouging and twisting. 

Quick cessation of bleeding wasn't going to help him if no blood was getting to his brain and his windpipe was crushed and torn. 

The blonde man thrashed for a moment before sagging in the grip of the dead hands. I waited a few moments longer to be certain that he was no longer breathing, then canceled the spell on the revenants, leaving Dalton at the lowest end of an awkward stair-step pile of fallen corpses. 

When I heard the _thump_ , I thought at first that it was just part of the pile settling. Then I heard Schala gasp, and turned around. 

Isa was down, crumpled on the floor. When I first turned, Schala was frozen beside her with her hand to her mouth, but before I could say anything, she had recovered and was kneeling beside the stricken woman, using her magic to diagnose her condition. 

I went over to crouch beside her and examined Isa carefully, without moving her. There was a dark, wet streak on one of her pantslegs, and when I bent closer, I smelled blood— evidently, too much blood for the self-cleaning spells on her uniform to deal with immediately. Picking up the knife that Schala had placed on the floor, I cut a long slash in the fabric and peeled it back. 

It wasn't a big wound—I expected that a search would find a nail or a small glass shard secured to something she had been thrown against while wrestling Dalton—but it was deep, and it had apparently nicked an artery. Blood was being forced out in little spurts with the action of Isa's heart. 

"She has lost too much blood," Schala said, sounding tense and sad. "Knitting the flesh back together will not restore her, but if you preserve her as you did Father, then perhaps Melchior could—" 

"Better that you don't." The voice was barely a whisper, and Isa didn't open her eyes. I was surprised that she was still conscious. "The world that Janus suggested I might have was inspiring . . . but I think it wasn't for me. Let Melchior save . . . his energies for . . . the king . . . and release me . . . back to . . . Zurvan . . . to dream . . . until my . . . father's voice . . . fades from . . . my mind . . ." 

Oh, I understood just what it was like to suffer from the echo of such a voice . . . but mine, at least, had been nudging me in something resembling the right direction, whereas hers . . . 

I touched her hand, not knowing if she would feel it. "Go in peace, then," I said softly. 

Her face bore the faintest hint of a smile as she breathed out, and then failed to breathe in again. 

A tear splashed onto the blood-soaked uniform fabric. Schala was crying. I stood, pulled her up and into my arms, and she leaned against my shoulder. 

"I shouldn't feel this way," she whispered. "I barely knew her, and yet . . ." 

What could I say to her? That Isa had been a surprisingly strong and intelligent woman who had deserved something better out of life than to be Belthasar's playing-piece? It would have sounded hypocritical, coming from someone like me. Nor was I about to suggest that Isa had become, in Schala's mind, a representative for everyone who had died here. 

"She was your comrade-in-arms," I managed at last. "Even if it was only for a brief time, she stood at your shoulder in battle. That can make . . . quite an impression on a person." 

The only response was a wordless tightening of her arms around my torso. 

I continued holding her until Vaie and a detachment of gargoyles arrived a few minutes later, afraid that this might be the last time, but not willing to tell her so if she hadn't already grasped the consequences of what I had done here. 

* * *

"I do not think there is a way we can neatly conceal this," Marus said. His face was grey and drawn, and he was lying in bed, propped up by a mound of pillows, but Melchior said that he eventually _would_ recover, although the amount of work it had taken to get him to this stage didn't bear thinking about. 

Schala and I were sitting together beside his bed. We'd been asked not to keep him awake too long if at all possible . . . but I suspected it wasn't going to be possible. 

"I knew there was a risk," I said with a weary shrug. "I don't think that there's anywhere I've been, in any time period, where necromancy is not regarded as anathema." Which was true: even the Mystics, who had been accepting of my raising dead humans, would have revolted if I had attempted the same thing with the body of one of their own. "Unfortunately, I couldn't think of what else to do. Either the living or the dead had to suffer, and I chose the dead." Just as I had in Guardia . . . but I had actively wanted to be feared there, rather than accepted. Here, having me be a figure of fear—and, worse, disgust—could cause difficulties for Schala's future reign, if I remained by her side. 

"There has to be something we can do," Schala said. 

"What would you suggest?" I asked. "My only chance lay in having all the Enhasans go quietly back to sleep—and most of them did, but a handful seem to feel the need to stay awake and spread rumours instead. And rumours tend to be nearly impossible to eradicate. Especially when they're true. Under just about any other circumstances, confessing publicly that I did perform the rumoured action would cause the whispers to die down, but in this particular case it would likely just make matters worse. The only solution is for me to leave." 

I couldn't bear to look at Schala as I said the words, so I fastened my gaze on Marus instead . . . only to discover that he looked scarcely happier. 

Schala stirred by my side. "I . . . was going to ask you to marry me. Today." 

"I'm sorry," was all I could say. 

"I had hoped," Marus said slowly, "that the two of you, together, would be able to lead Zeal into the future. Selfishly, I had also hoped to get to know you better, Janus—to learn more about the man my son might have become, had he survived. I would like to be able to be angry at you for destroying yourself in this spectacular and improbable manner . . . and yet, you did it at my daughter's request and to save several of my people, making it difficult to complain." The king hesitated for a moment. "It might still be possible to salvage this by carrying out a campaign to stamp out superstitions pertaining to necromancy—and it is perhaps high time that we made the attempt." 

"That will take years," I said evenly, "and there are those who never will be completely convinced. You can't afford to keep me by your side while that's going on—Zeal is already too unstable, and the presence of a monster in the royal faction might just be enough to cause a revolution, rather than some pathetic little palace coup. Even if I were to leave and return at a later time, all I would do is stir up bad memories." 

"What if I told you that we were willing to take that risk?" Schala said it softly, as though not quite certain that she wanted anyone to hear. 

My mouth thinned. "It wouldn't matter, because _I_ am not willing to take it. I won't risk either of your lives for the sake of selfishness. I . . . care for you too much." Although I would have bitten my tongue off before saying so in any other company. 

"Janus . . ." A tear rolled down Schala's cheek, and I turned and gathered her into my arms. 

"I am so, so sorry," I whispered, hoping that repetition would result in the words finally having an impact. "I never meant to hurt you." 

A soft sigh. "I know. I suppose I will just have to think of our time together as a dream: beautiful, as dreams sometimes are, but not . . . real." 

My own eyes were stinging. _It's the right thing to do,_ I told myself. It would stabilize the political situation, and neatly put to rest all my worries about how a partner who aged would deal with the fact that I did not . . . and it felt like I was tearing my heart out. I wanted to scream, to rail at fate the way I had when my sister had thrown me clear of the Ocean Palace and into the snow . . . but I wasn't alone here, and the old habits that kept me from demonstrating weakness were still too rigid to permit me any relief. 

I forced myself to take refuge in practicalities. "We will need to dissolve our consortship publicly. However, I find myself divided over whether we should do it immediately, to lessen the impact of my presence, or to wait a few days until your father is able to preside." 

"Melchior says that I should be well enough to sit up for an hour or two tomorrow," Marus said quietly. "If you are both agreeable, I think it can wait until then without any risk of causing a revolution." 

Schala's arms tightened around me until I was having a little trouble breathing. It was clear that she didn't want to let me go. Such a change from those early, awkward moments, when she had been uncomfortable with the idea of me touching her! Rather than dislodging her, I stroked her back and her hair until she calmed slightly and relaxed her grip. 

"I wish I were not the only heir," she said tightly. "Perhaps then we could run away together. Just you and I." 

I didn't say anything. I didn't dare. Stealing her away would have been . . . too perfect a solution. 

Marus shifted. "If that is truly what would make you both happy, I could attempt to find someone else," he said, although he didn't sound happy about the idea. 

Schala shook her head. "I have already said that I will not run away from my responsibilities—when I first met Janus, he suggested that I might stay in his world, but I refused. This is no different." 

Painful silence. Then I once again forced practicality upon myself and said to Marus, "We should let you get some rest." 

The king's reply was prefixed by a distinctly unregal snort. "This conversation has hardly been restful . . . but Melchior will likely be even less impressed by that fact than you are. Yes, by all means, go." 

Schala released me from her embrace so that we could get up, but the moment we were on our feet, she took my hand, as though afraid that I would evaporate if she didn't hold onto me. We walked slowly through the antechamber of the king's suite, past the guards at the outer door, and out into the stubby hallway beyond, where Schala dragged me into her room. A lesser human denizen of the palace, who had been loitering in the hall, stared at us with an expression of disgust as the door closed. 

"Hold me," Schala said softly, without even waiting until we were up the stairs. "Please, Janus." 

I wrapped my arms around her, and made use of my powers to levitate us up onto the main level of the room. Schala barely seemed to notice. 

We stood there together for what seemed like a very long time before Schala suddenly set her jaw, wriggled loose again, and reached for the collar of her outermost robe. I frowned, not understanding what she was doing until she had two layers off and the front seam of the third halfway open. Underneath that, she wore only a sheer, semitransparent silk undergarment. 

I caught her hands in mine, stilling them. "No," I said, although I longed to do just the opposite. 

Her eyes flooded with tears. "Janus, please. Once— just once—I want to . . ." 

It took all my fortitude to still the need to wipe those tears away. "If we were together—even just once—I don't know if I would be able to let you go," I said, my own voice sounding thick. "Better to avoid temptation." 

"Would it truly be so bad? You want to stay. I want you to stay." 

"You know better than that." I banished the images that were forming in my head, the ones of how I might force myself on Zeal by terror and violence, before they could become more than faint shadows. I could do it: I was strong enough and hard enough, and with the Sun Stone depleted to nothing there was no one here with the power to oppose me . . . but the world that would have resulted from my actions wouldn't have been the world that Schala wanted to create, and if I did it she would eventually come to resent me for it. 

"I am so very tired of always having to be the one who knows better," she said at last, sounding . . . brittle. "I am not a goddess. Why should I not be permitted an occasional bit of selfishness, childishness, or ordinary bad judgement?" 

_And yes, I can be selfish. And stubborn. And steal all the blankets off the bed in the middle of the night—just ask Serge!_

I shook my head to rid myself of the echo of the oh-so-similar voice that wasn't actually hers. "Do you truly think that you would be able to live with yourself, if you intentionally did what you know to be the wrong thing?" 

Her shoulders slumped, and the word she muttered sounded like she had picked it up from me. "I . . . Over time, it might come to gnaw at me, but that is small comfort now. I do not know . . . how to deal with this pain. It is . . . so raw . . . almost like when Mother died . . ." 

"It's raw because it's fresh," I pointed out gently. "This kind of wound can't be healed by magic, so you have to give it time to heal on its own." Inwardly, I forced silence on the little voice that was observing that my words didn't at all match my personal experiences. I wasn't going to die, or disappear without a trace leaving her wondering what had happened. Surely, knowing that I was at least safe and well would help her pain go away. 

Or perhaps . . . if it wasn't enough, I could provide her with a distraction, and thanks to the damnable Flame, I had an idea of what a useful distraction might be. 

I don't know if Schala heard me when I excused myself before teleporting away . . . all the while telling myself sternly that I was _not_ running away. I was still telling myself as much when I reappeared in a disused alcove in a third- floor hallway and ducked out past the curtains concealing it. 

The door I wanted was the third on the left. As I stopped in front of it, hand poised to knock, a voice from inside said, "Please come in. If you're going to give me the chills this way, I'd like you to at least do it face-to-face." 

I snorted. "It's rude to admit to someone that you're sensing his aura," I observed as I opened the door. 

Ruan rolled his eyes. "Give me a break. I haven't even been Enlightened for a full day yet, and now you're expecting me to understand your etiquette? Besides, I figured it was you—old man Melchior told me that your aura scared most people silly." The young no-longer-Earthbound was sitting at the desk stuffed into the corner of his standard-issue guestroom, and appeared to have been reading a book and taking notes. I was a bit surprised that he was literate, although I wasn't about to say so. 

I stepped inside, closed the door behind me, and leaned back against it, arms folded. Ruan raised his eyebrows. 

"If you're taking the trouble to guard your line of retreat, whatever you have to say must be pretty serious," Ruan said. 

"I'll be leaving Zeal within the next few days," I said flatly. 

Ruan blinked. "Leaving . . . Wait, you mean _permanently_? Why?" 

"Because I've placed myself in a position where my remaining might cause the entire kingdom to collapse." I said it in a flat, even tone. 

"I'm not sure that would be such a bad thing." 

I barked a laugh. "You've gone from hunter to revolutionary in less than two weeks? In the long run, perhaps it wouldn't be, but in the short term, it would be all the wrong people who got hurt." _People I care about . . ._ but admitting that would have been just that last little bit too much. 

Ruan was staring now. "So why take the time to tell me, of all people? Or are you working your way down a list?" 

Which wasn't such a bad idea, actually, although it would be a short one. Melchior, Vaie, the Heckran sergeant who had compiled the report on Dalton . . . yes, that was probably about it. 

I shook my head. "No, I came here first. As for why . . . well, I would have thought you were intelligent enough to put two and two together. I'm leaving _alone_." 

Ruan's expression became wary. "And the princess agreed to this?" 

"She didn't have a choice." 

"Then . . ." His eyes flickered downward, and I wondered if he thought that would really hide the hope that was beginning to subtly diffuse across his face. "You're here to either warn me or beat me up, I guess—not to kill me, or you'd already be winding my guts artistically around the bedposts." 

"Killing you never even crossed my mind," I said wearily. "What good would it do? Schala is the sole heir—she'll have to marry someone, and the need for stronger ties to Algetty makes you a good choice. Furthermore, you . . . care . . . for her—yes, of course I've noticed," I said as an expression of pure terror flickered across his face. "I'm charging you to watch over her in my place. If you harm her, or if you permit her to be harmed—" 

"— _then_ you'll come back, eviscerate me, and have me stuffed and mounted as a warning to anyone else who might try something so stupid," Ruan provided, not quite smiling. 

"It's a little difficult to stuff and mount a handful of cinders," I said dryly, and the young hunter snorted. "However, you seem to have the right idea, so I suppose I'll let the details go." 

Now Ruan did smile, just a little. "Right." A slight hesitation. "And . . . Janus?" 

My eyebrows rose. "What?" 

"I can't say that it's been a _pleasure_ knowing you, exactly, but it's been . . . interesting." 

I shrugged. 

Schala and I repudiated our vows the next day in the throne room, with most of the population of the palace observing. We spoke the words stoically, wearing the public faces we had both been trained as children to use to hide our feelings, and no one save Marus and Melchior, who stood to the right of the throne, could possibly have been close enough to see the pain in Schala's eyes or the way her fingers lingered for a moment on the sleeve of my robe. 

Afterwards, I bowed to the king, turned on my heel, and walked from the room. There was silence until I passed through the double doors at the far end, but once I was outside, a flurry of whispered conversation erupted. 

I pretended not to hear, instead returning to my old room, where I took off the damned robe for the last time and folded it carefully. After a moment's thought, I placed it at the bottom of the pocket of nothing which held my scythe: it was possible that I might need it again someday. 

"Shall we go?" I asked young Alfador, who was sitting on the bed watching me, and suddenly found a feline limpet attached to my shoulder. 

No one tried to stop me as I walked out through the main gates of the palace and flew away, skimming overland until I reached the cave where the old Gate terminus lay. Rather than force that open, I scribbled a familiar diagram on the floor, and let myself into the End of Time. 

Leaning against the fountain, I invoked Gaspar's time viewing spell and began to follow Schala forward. I saw her marriage to Ruan . . . the birth of their three children . . . Schala's ascent to the throne when Marus finally stepped down. Over her lifetime, not only did Zeal and Algetty gradually come together, but the cloud cover obscuring the sky slowly broke up, and the world whose stewardship she passed on to her son at the end of her reign was green and united . . . almost utopian. A good world, but not one with any place for someone like me. 

Nevertheless, it was reassuring, and I had a smile on my face as I opened the way to the Darkness Beyond Time.


	9. Epilogue:  Scars of Time

"Oy, Magil! You awake?" 

I blink, dragging myself back to the present. The older I get, the easier it becomes to get lost inside my own head, mired in layer after layer of memory. It has started to reach the point of becoming actively dangerous: a few times in the past ten years or so, I've drifted off into limbo while face-to-face with an enemy, and only the presence of allies has saved my life. I suppose it just goes to show that the human mind is not meant to encompass centuries. 

I drop down from the tree limb on which I've been sitting, waiting for darkness to come, and land beside Kid and Serge—not the same Kid, though, or the same Serge. Her hair is flaxen, worn in a thick, waist-length braid, where the first Kid was golden-maned; he is a somewhat disreputable bard that we met in a tavern, not a fisherman. 

"We should wait a little longer," I say, gazing at the sun, which is low on the horizon, but not completely set yet. My mask filters the light—ironic that, now that I have finally restored my form to something more human, I must hide my features lest Kid notice the resemblance between us. 

"Oh, I grant ya we'd make lovely targets trying to go over the wall right now, mate, but ya looked like ya were in dreamland." 

I shrug and turn, pretending to examine the walls around the building known in this world as Viper Manor as I let my mind begin to drift again. How long has it been? How many worlds have I passed through? How many Schalas, Kids, Serges, Luccas, Cronos . . . ? It's difficult to remember, but a few worlds do stand out, like the one where the heirs to Zeal were Prince Schalan and Princess Janna—which I departed quickly—and the one where Porre never rose and Guardia survived into the distant future. Indeed, it's sometimes the oddest things that stay constant from world to world . . . 

"Kid? Hey, Kid!" 

Serge's voice draws me back to the present a second time, and I prepare myself for another assault on Viper Manor in pursuit of yet another Frozen Flame.   
  


**_End._ **   
  



End file.
